


You Gave Me Your Heart

by florienna



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Accidental Trouble Magnet Tsuna, Alternate Universe - Arabian Nights Fusion, Angels, Angst, Djinns, Everyone Loves Tsuna, Family Drama, Feels, Gen, Humor, Knights - Freeform, Magic, Self-Discovery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2019-05-09 09:23:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14713425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/florienna/pseuds/florienna
Summary: It began like this: Tsunayoshi Sawada, fourteen years old, flat on his back in the middle of the desert.





	1. You Gave Me Your Tears

It began like this: Tsunayoshi Sawada, fourteen years old, flat on his back in the middle of the desert. His eyes were closed, as if it would let the heat of the sun seep better into his skin. He wasn’t quite tall enough for a boy his age but he wasn’t short either. His body wasn’t particularly skinny or chubby, his nose wasn’t particularly dainty or protruding, and his face wasn’t particularly handsome or plain. Even his frayed tunic was a quietly unremarkable cut of grey.

Here was one way to describe Tsunayoshi Sawada: his hair was the same shade as a cup of tea that had been forgotten about for too long and had gone tepid. Also, the way it stood up in tufts made him seem like a permanently bewildered rabbit.

So there he was, nestled under a lone palm tree without a single person, dwelling or glimmer of water in sight. He was adrift in an ocean of bronzed sands that stretched endlessly in every direction, rising and falling in duned waves, rippling in patterns where the wind had traced its fingertips.

What woke Tsuna up wasn’t the approaching thud of hooves, or the rustling of clothes, or even the hitched gasp that half choked out of someone’s throat. 

What woke Tsuna up was the rain. He felt fat drops of water land on his forehead. Each one wobbled uncertainly before bursting apart and joining the rivers trickling down his cheeks.

One of them dripped into his parted lips. It tasted salty. 

Tsuna opened his eyes. There was a boy hunched over him whose shaking shoulders froze as soon as Tsuna looked at him. He didn’t look much older than Tsuna and had eyes that swam in dizzying oceans. In that suspension of a single second, a wave already on teetering on the brink of the boy’s eyelashes splashed down onto Tsuna.

Tsuna blinked. The boy shrieked shrilly and slapped Tsuna across the face. 

“What was that for?!” Tsuna cried out, scampering backwards and holding his stinging cheek. 

“You scared me! I thought you were dead!”

“Why would I be dead?!”

“Because you were just, you were lying there!”

“I was taking a nap!” 

“A nap?” the boy parroted. He waved his arms around him and all ten of his rings conjured halos in the sunlight. “We’re in the middle of the desert! You don’t even have a camel!”

“Ah,” Tsuna said slowly and tried not to meet the boy’s teary, bewildered gaze. He looked around as if his surroundings might have magically changed from before he had collapsed in exhaustion. Nope. Still the same infinite canvas of sand, sand and more sand. “Um…I don’t mean to bother you, but your camel is eating your shirt.” 

“What?” the boy said. He looked down at the jaw that was slowly but determinedly chomping at his embroidered tunic hem. “Hey— stop that— knock it off, Enzo!”

Tsuna watched wide-eyed as the boy tugged his shirt, to no avail. It was like watching a kitten trying to wrestle with a wet blanket. He shook himself out of his reverie and, with some effort, stood up. He tested his weight on one foot, then the other. They still hurt but it was more of an absent-minded ache, as opposed to its previous stabbed-with-a-thousand-heated-glass-shards pain level from before his nap. It would have to do. 

Tsuna gave one last futile attempt to shake his clothes free of sand. He snuck a glance at the boy who was alternating between pleading with his camel and kicking at it, before walking away. 

Or at least, he tried to.

“Hey! Hey, where are you going?” the boy called after him.

“I need to head off now,” Tsuna said without slowing down.

“What? But you don’t even have any shoes. How did you get here in the first place?”

“I’ll be fine. Please, don’t worry,” Tsuna said and promptly tripped over a buried thistle sprout. He stumbled but, with the help of some arm flailing, managed to catch his balance. “I’m okay!” 

“You’re not okay! Wait up,” the boy said but Tsuna was already walking again. The thistle had stabbed the sole of his left foot and it twinged with every step, but he kept on going. He had to. He couldn’t look back, no matter how much this strange stranger protested, no matter the sudden commotion of a braying camel and laboured curses and… what in the world was going on back there?! 

Tsuna looked back. His jaw slackened. The boy was trekking towards Tsuna with comically staggering steps. His fists were clenched and beads of sweats rolled down his reddened neck. This, and the resolute set of his jaw, owed solely to the fact that his camel was still latched stubbornly onto his shirt and was being bodily dragged behind the boy through his sheer will power. 

“I said…wait…up…,” the boy panted. Tsuna, who had no idea what to do when encountering an overeager sales merchant let alone a situation like this, stopped to let the boy reach him. The boy made several aborted attempts at conversation before finally catching his breath. “You, you really walk fast for someone so small.” 

Tsuna was still staring at the camel, who had plomped itself on the ground with the air of an offended cat. Naturally, it still had the boy’s shirt between its teeth. “Uh, yeah.” 

“You’re travelling to the Sun Citadel, right? It’s the only place anywhere near here.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Great! I know the way and I have Enzo and I’m old enough to be your older brother, so I’ll escort you there.” 

“Yeah…wait, what?” 

“I’m Dino, nice to meet you!” 

Tsuna stared at the hand being offered to him. It was laden with bejewelled rings and flushed scarlet with sunburn, as if Dino wasn’t used to spending time outdoors. He wasn’t wearing a turban for shade, although to be fair Tsuna wasn’t either, and his blonde hair was half gelled back in what he clearly thought was a fashionable style. 

Here was one way to describe Dino Cavallone: when Enzo had caught a chest infection a year ago, Dino had cried so hard that he had tripped over his own robes and fallen down ten flights of stairs in front of a visiting noblewoman. She had seemed amused by this novel twist that had interrupted her argument on why she shouldn’t sell her ceramic artifacts to his family; his parents, less so.

The part of Tsuna that had had manners drilled into him from a young age took Dino’s hand and recited, “Nice to meet you, I’m Tsuna— no no no, hold up. I’m sorry, I can’t travel with you. Please stop looking at me like that!” 

“Like what?” 

“Like that!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dino said with alarming sincerity and his lower lip trembled. Tsuna ducked his gaze. “Why can’t I come? It’s safer with the two of us together. It’s way too dangerous to go alone.”

“It’s way more dangerous travelling with me!”

“What— how is it more dangerous? That doesn’t even make any sense!”

“Because I’m cursed!” Tsuna shouted.

Tsuna clapped a hand over his mouth. His heart had leapt up his throat and rested heavy on his tongue. There was a silence more stifling than the chambers of a catacomb. 

Dino opened and closed his mouth a few times. He laughed weakly. “That’s, you’re joking right? Everyone knows curses are just backwards village superstition. They don’t _really_ exist.”                                                

“They do. I have one. So I have to travel alone. It’s nothing against you, I swear. You have your own camel and supplies and— here, let me get him off you—”                                                                       

Tsuna’s leaned into Dino’s space and scratched Enzo behind his ear. His tail swished back and forth in the sand. He released Dino’s shirt to nuzzle into Tsuna’s hand.

Tsuna gave a few more strokes. He then stepped back with his hand clasped around his wrist.

“So you’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. It’s a one week walk south to my village but you’ll probably get there faster on camelback. They always have room in their inn for travellers but, ah, don’t mention my name to them. They’ll be friendlier that way.” 

He gave Dino a small smile. “It really was nice to meet you.”

Dino blinked dazedly at him before blurting, “Dinner!” He looked thrown aback at his own outburst but ploughed on regardless. “I mean, at least have dinner with me. I have more than enough to feed someone else tonight.”

“I, I can’t stay that long, I need to get going before nightfall.”

“That’s okay! We’ve still got a few hours until sunset. We’ll eat before then.” 

“I feel bad making you set up camp early…”

“Enzo needs his rest anyway. What’s a few hours difference on your journey? You must be hungry right? Please? Pretty pretty please?”

Tsuna’s stomach rumbled and the tips of his ears blushed red. “…Okay. Fine. Just one hour.”

 

* * *

 

Two and a half hours later, Tsuna was sitting opposite a campfire with a bowl of stew in his lap. The bowl was an elegant dish with gold embellishments of flowers and vines; it was china, completely unsuited for travelling and had already chipped in several places.

Dino was scarfing down his own stew as if it was air and he was suffocating. “Thish ish good! Sho delishous!”                                   

“You’re going to choke,” Tsuna sighed. He had been unsure about what food Dino would have—maybe some water and bread rations, or possibly even some dried dates. He certainly hadn’t expected Dino to unload a bizarre assortment of bundles from Enzo’s saddlebags that included honey-soaked baklava, several half-eaten naan breads, mint and coriander herbs, a recipe book with ‘DO NOT REMOVE FROM KITCHEN’ labelled on the front, and eight half decaying apples. Dino had taken one look at the apples before shrugging and tossing them in the fire. What a waste of food! Tsuna would have cut off the brown parts and served the rest to be eaten if he had been given any time to protest. 

There was also the fact that Tsuna was the one who had cooked the meal. Dino hadn’t forced Tsuna to do this—it was actually the other way around. Tsuna had to force _Dino_ to stop cooking for the continued survival of their meal, their camp, and quite probably Tsuna and Dino themselves. Who knew there were so many possible ways a person could invent to trip over, including over thin air itself?

“It’s a bit strange,” Tsuna wondered out loud, absentmindedly stirring his spoon in lazy circles. “I always thought nobles were supposed to be really graceful.”

Dino spewed out a whole mouthful of stew and coughed desperately. His bowl fell to the ground.  “What _—What—?”_  

“You know, like strutting around and sticking out their little finger and saying ‘how do you do?’. Like a peacock, I guess. You’re kind of different from what I would have thought.” 

 _“I’m not a noble!”_ Dino finally managed to wheeze out.

Tsuna’s eyebrows scrunched up. “Dino, your recipe book says ‘Property of the Most Noble and Illustrious House of Cavallone’ on it. And you’re wearing a gold chain necklace with your name on it. No one does that unless they’re rich, or really lame, or both.”

“But my tailor told me that’s the latest trend! Is it really not cool?” Tsuna awkwardly patted him on the back. Dino groaned and buried his head in his arms. “…Please don’t tell anyone about me. Or that you saw me.”

“Okay.”

“I can tell you why, but you have to keep it a secret.” 

“You really don’t have to…” 

“The truth is,” Dino said, leaning forward. “ _I ran away from home_.”

Dino paused dramatically. Tsuna scratched his cheek thoughtfully. “Huh. Me too, actually.”

“What?” 

“I ran away too. Well, my village chased me out but it’s kind of the same thing, right? There was running and it was away from my home, so.” 

“How barbaric! Why would they do something so cruel?”

Tsuna looked down and mumbled, “I’m cursed, remember?”

“But I don’t get it, how did you become cursed—”

“So why are you running away from home anyway?”

Even though Tsuna had only met Dino a few hours ago, it was evident that Dino had a disposition brighter than the blue sky. Even when his tears fell, the sun shone kindly behind his showers of rain. Tsuna had let his guard down—otherwise, he wouldn’t have tensed so visibly when black thunderclouds stormed over Dino’s face.

“ _That bastard_ ,” Dino growled, his voice more beast than human. He yanked up his sleeve and thrust his arm in Tsuna’s face. “Look at it. _Look_."

Tsuna inhaled. 

Dino’s arm had bracelets of bruises in hues of purples, greens and yellows. They were the canvas for a scattering of red cuts. Most of them were small scrapes, all except for one. Dino pointed his finger at it. It was a gash that snaked vertically from his inner wrist to elbow. It was still fresh and had barely begun to scab.

“After this one,” Dino said. “I couldn’t stay there any longer.”

“Who did this to you?” Tsuna said quietly.

Dino clenched his fists. “His name is Reborn. My mother hired him to be my private tutor two weeks ago and he’s made my life a living hell ever since. They say he’s the finest fighter and the brightest scholar in the whole country. They say he has his own quarters at the Vongola Castle and lends his advice to the Vongola Knights himself. But no one told me that he was absolutely insane! What kind of tutor would booby trap your bed every night, or detonate a bomb for every politics question you get wrong, or throw you in a cage with a lion to spar to the death with? I don’t even like to eat meat! I’m a vegetarian! 

“And of course, no one believes me when I tell them, or they tell me to be a man and toughen up. It’s like he’s put a spell on everyone to make them oblivious. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a djinn in disguise…” 

Dino trailed off, his chest rising and falling with the passion of his tirade. There had been a beast caged in his heart for two weeks and this was the first time he had let it free. Now he felt somewhat emptier, somewhat quieter. He had found it easier to direct his speech to the roaring flames, but now he looked over to appraise Tsuna’s reaction. 

“…Are you _crying_?” 

“No,” Tsuna snuffled. He wiped his face furiously with his sleeve. “Yes.” 

“I’m the one who should be crying, not you!”

“I know, stop looking at me…It’s just, that must have been horrible. You must have been so scared.”

“What are you talking about?” Dino laughed. “I’m a Cavallone. We don’t get _scared_.”

Tsuna moved before he realised what he was doing. He wrapped his arms around Dino, who immediately stiffened. 

“Whoever told you that,” Tsuna said quietly. “Wasn’t being very honest with themself.” 

Tsuna quietly didn’t comment on the way Dino was trembling or how Tsuna’s shoulder was growing damp. He sighed on the inside and looked up at the stars. There were too many feelings warring in his heart for him to handle. His body felt incredibly heavy, not because of Dino’s weight but someone larger, an immense sorrow for this boy who had been surrounded by people yet had suffered alone. There was also a foreign icy fury in his chest that was fighting to be set loose. Who did this Reborn think he was, to be so abusive to someone as gentle as Dino… 

Wait, why were the stars out? Tsuna’s chin jolted higher. He stared at the expanse of sky above him, with its lilac and rose streaks fading into a backdrop of deep indigo. Like a complete idiot, Tsuna hadn’t noticed the sunset and now darkness was pulling its blanket over the heavens.

Dino must have felt Tsuna freeze because he lifted his head and rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry for crying on you like a baby…”

“I have to leave. I’ve been here too long.”

A flash of hurt crumpled Dino’s face. “Tsuna, I…I’ve been thinking. I really don’t feel right with you travelling alone.”

But Tsuna was already on his feet and rushing to tidy his bowl away. “I have to Dino, you don’t understand.” 

“Just stay the night and we’ll talk about it in the morning. Tsuna, please.” 

“I _can’t_.”

“You can’t just walk off now, it’s night-time! It’s dangerous!” 

“That’s the whole point!” Tsuna cried out, spinning around on his heels. He wanted to shake Dino by the shoulders. Why was he being so incredibly stubborn? Most of the villagers would have thanked the angels if they didn’t have the misfortune of encountering Tsuna in the streets or the market. Tsuna had never been someone whose company people actually sought for.

Tsuna would have run off already if he wasn’t certain that Dino would adamantly give chase. He also worried it would be incredibly rude, especially since Dino had shown him nothing but kindness. 

Tsuna had no choice. The only weapon he had now were his words.

“Dino, _listen_ to me,” Tsuna urged. He stepped forward with his body silhouetted against the dying campfire. “You need to trust me. It’s not safe for you to stay with me because…because whenever the sun sets, I—”

Tsuna’s heart jolted. Dino’s eyes were wide, so impossibly wide, set ablaze with the amber hue of the campfire flames. There was a shadowy reflection in those eyes of a cloaked figure, rearing up on a silent horse behind Tsuna with one arm raised— 

Pain flared at the back of Tsuna’s neck.

His eyes fluttered shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is a rewrite of my previously posted fic The Djinn Prince. I have a better idea now of how I want the plot to go and how my writing style should be like. Enjoy!


	2. You Gave Me Your Answer

The back of Tsuna’s neck was throbbing.

Each throb pounded into his skull and chased away the bliss of unconsciousness. Tsuna groaned. He automatically tried to touch the inflamed skin only to find that he couldn’t reach. He couldn’t move his hands at all.

Tsuna’s groggy eyes flew open. His hunched legs came into focus; his ankles were tied together with rope, as well as his wrists behind his back. The rope was bristly and callously tight to the point that Tsuna’s fingers felt alarmingly numb.

Tsuna wildly looked around, trying to make sense of what the hell was going on. He was propped up against a wall like a rag doll. The wall curved around him in dizzying layers of burnt amber sandstone until it led to an opening some twenty paces away. He was in a shallow cave, Tsuna realised. The moon hung just out of reach with a jagged smile, taunting him to escape with his incapacitated hands and feet.

The moonlight was harshly bright and cast the cave into deep shadows. Tsuna stared at the distant sky and fought to keep his breathing steady. Calm. He had to keep calm. This wasn’t so different to being immobilised in chokeholds or trapped in the village well by children who delighted in his tears. It wasn’t different at all.

Don’t think about it as a kidnapping.

Don’t think too deeply at all.

His past self would be crying for help or burying himself alive in despondency at this point but Tsuna couldn’t do that. He was different now. He had to keep control of the situation. He had to keep control of himself. He had to—

There was a slight shifting of fabric.

Tsuna snapped his head around.

In the dimness of the cave, what he had previously thought was another small boulder was unhunching, was straightening up, was a figure cloaked in darkness. Tsuna’s eyes slowly adjusted and sharpened details out of the gloom. It was a man sitting on a low rock, with his legs crossed and spine straight as if he was holding court on a throne. His cloak was so dark that he might as well have stolen the starless sky and swathed it around his body. The cloak's hood was pulled down low, obscuring the stranger’s face along with any recognisable features.

Here was one way to describe this man: he was someone who could slide a dagger across your throat in a crowded street and vanish before anyone noticed.

Tsuna didn’t understand why his heart was beating painfully fast, why terror was squeezing it tight. The man cocked his head at him, birdlike and eerie, before raising his slender hands and pulling back his hood.

He barely noticed the man’s pointed jaw, or his high cheekbones, or even his knife-sharp short hair. No, what Tsuna couldn’t stop staring at were those eyes, those unnaturally spectral eyes…

“You…” Tsuna swallowed, his throat dry. “You’re not human, are you.”

The flat line of the man’s mouth curved slightly into a smile, the tips of his pointed teeth flashing. “Neither are you, Tsunayoshi Sawada.”

Tsuna stiffened. The edges of his vision darkened drastically. He trembled with the effort to stay conscious, to not let the presence inside him to swallow Tsuna whole and sink their fangs into this unknown threat.

“What,” he ground out. “Do you want with me?”

“Egotistical child. You are not the one I want.”

“Then who—” Tsuna’s mind raced like lightning striking. The way the man’s eyes kept slipping to the cave entrance, the way Tsuna was positioned to be easily spotted to anyone who rode past, the way he had been kidnapped in plain sight of—

“Dino,” Tsuna breathed in mounting horror. He was rewarded with a slight incline of the man’s head. “I’m—I’m _bait_ for Dino? But he was right in front of you! You could have taken him right there.”

“There is no meaning to this game if he is not the one to come to me.”

“A game…? What do you mean—”

There was a blur and a braided leather rope cracked against the wall next to Tsuna. He nearly screamed. He hadn’t even seen the man move but he was now looming above him with a bullwhip in one hand. One hair’s breadth closer and it would have flayed the skin right off Tsuna’s cheek.

“Someone like you,” the man said, pulling the bullwhip taut between his hands. “Does not understand the situation at all. This is between me and the Cavallone heir. So be silent and sit there like a good hostage.”

“...No.”

For the first time, Tsuna saw the man’s stoic expression falter. Bewilderment threatened to furrow his eyebrows together. “No?”

Tsuna was shaking uncontrollably, both with fear and sheer willpower to stay in control of himself. Dear all the blessed angels in the heavens above, Tsuna was digging his own grave and wrapping himself in his funeral shrouds and even asking for the dirt to be shovelled back on top of him. But for the person who would shed tears over a stranger lying unconscious in the middle of a desert…

“You’re right. I don’t understand what you want with Dino or your relationship with him or, or what kind of creature you’d have to be to not wear kohl with eyes your shape! But!” he floundered on at the look _that_ received. “But Dino’s the kindest person I’ve ever met. He hasn’t done anything to deserve this! He must be so confused and scared right now. Who do you think you are to cause him that kind of pain and call it a _game_?”

The man stepped back as if he had been slapped across the face.

“I…” he faltered. “I am his tutor. I have the right to do with my student as I wish.”

Oh.

A lone butterfly fluttered past the cave entrance. Each beat of its wings loosened another knot in Tsuna’s stomach. He thought butterflies weren’t nocturnal but he must have been wrong. He had been trying so desperately to use his words over his fists but he was wrong about that too.

“Thank goodness,” Tsuna said and there must have been something about his voice because the man immediately tensed. “That the person who gave Dino those injuries isn’t human. That I don’t have to hold back against the one who made him cry like that.”

Tsuna dropped his smile.

“Isn’t that right, _Reborn_?”

And his world exploded into a hurricane of ice.

 

* * *

 

As a child, the world was an uncomplicated place with simple facts of life. The sun was hot. The sky was blue. The desert was dangerous.

“Don’t play outside the village fence, my flower,” his mother had reminded him every morning as she wiped the crumbs off his mouth and neatened his rolled up sleeves. “Especially after dark. Be back before sunset, okay?”

Tsuna would nod rapidly to try to stop his mother from worrying (as fruitful a task as her attempts to comb his unruly hair) and go walk to the tiny village school to have his letters and numbers beat into him with a cane, knowing fully well he wouldn’t be welcomed in the other children’s games of daringly touching the village fence, and that he would be too scared to do it anyway.

After all, everyone knew the story of Creation. Humans had been made from clay, with malleable souls so that each one could choose to mould themselves into purity or corruption. From dirt they were born and under the dirt they would be buried to await their time of Judgement in the afterlife. Angels had been formed from fire, an element as ardent and holy as themselves.

And then there were djinns.

Sinful.

Bloodthirsty.

 _Monstrous_.

They said that djinns were created from ice because there was no other element that was more cruel and utterly devoid of warmth. They said that they dwelled in another realm where the rivers ran thick with blood and bones paved the streets. They said that there were djinns who had found portals into the human realm and roamed the desert on shadowy horses, slaughtering any unsuspecting traveller that crossed their path.

It was nearly impossible to escape but if you managed to do so, there would be no villager who would open their door for you. Once you met a djinn, you were marked for death.

That was, except for Tsuna.

He was currently standing outside the sandstone cave. He unflexed his fingers and the giant shards of ice spiking out of the cave entrance quivered in response. He exhaled and a cloud of mist trailed in the air.

Here was another fact of life: it had been three months since a dying djinn had sought sanctuary inside Tsuna’s body and merged with his soul, to the extent that he sometimes looked at his reflection in the dead of night and couldn’t tell where his own self ended and the other one began.

His other self, like in all other times it noticed danger, had now risen to the surface and wrapped its tendrils around Tsuna’s heart. It slowed his racing pulse to a calm steadiness. It hardened his thoughts to make them cool, calculating, _clever_.

Here was one way to describe Tsuna's djinn: they could find a way to suspend the ocean in mid-air and collapse it onto their enemies.

The enemy named Reborn was locked in sight. He was standing opposite them at an approximate distance of twenty paces.

Tsuna’s mind raced. They had insufficient data on the enemy. Most creatures, whether human or djinn, had their own aura unique to their species and individual strength. This enemy had none. His aura, or rather, where his aura should have been, was blank. This either meant he was too weak to have an aura, or he was something they hadn’t encountered before, an anomaly.

They had just tested the enemy with a powerful assault. The enemy had escaped the cave unaffected, save for his hair being swept back in the aftershock.

The enemy was an anomaly.

Threat level was now confirmed as maximum.

It had been one heartbeat since Tsuna had exploded the cave. In the second heartbeat, they strengthened the muscles in their feet and calves. In the third, they _pushed_.

With their knees bent, Tsuna soared up into the sky on an arch of pure ice. The soles of their feet were freezing the air and propelling their body upwards. Both of their hands were angled either side of them to steady their balance. A frosty fog billowed behind them, like the trail of a shooting star.

Tsuna soared higher and higher until, finally, the clouds kissed their forehead. At the pinnacle of the flight, they eclipsed against the moon. In that single second, they drew upon its powers to intensify their own.

Then Tsuna twisted their torso and dived down.

The pathway of ice that they had created crumbled apart into a million glistening stars, a million knives that missiled alongside them to the sands below. They obscured Tsuna from their enemy’s sight. They knew where each shard was positioned and that none would dare to pierce their own skin.

Tsuna drew back their shoulder and, in their rainfall of ice, punched the enemy in the face—

Only for their fist to meet displaced air. The enemy had vanished. Gravity dragged their fist down and their knuckles sank into the ground. The earth itself caved under their force and shards spiked upwards in a crescent starburst, massive pillars of ice that were higher than ten men.

“My senses were correct,” a voice said from behind them. Tsuna spun around. Just like in the cave, the enemy had dodged so fast that there hadn’t even been a blur of movement. He was now fifteen paces away from Tsuna with not a single fold of his cloak in disarray. “What an interesting djinn and human half-breed you are, Tsunayoshi Sawada. But that is not who I am currently talking to, is it?”

Tsuna flung out their arm and the cloud above them rumbled with thunder. In a flash of lightning, an armoury of ice swords cascaded down and landed in a circle around the enemy. Just before the last sword landed, the enemy disappeared again.

“You have raw strength in plenty but your fighting style is untrained, Tsunayoshi Sawada.” This time the enemy had blinked into existence to their right, ten paces away.

“Shut your mouth. You have no right to address my host,” Tsuna’s mouth said. Their fingers circled around one of their wrists, tilting it to display the rope burns. “You dared to abduct and injure what is mine.”

The enemy tilted his head lightly. There was a strange, unsettling curiosity in his dark eyes. “You clearly care about your host, despite not being the same species.”

Tsuna didn’t respond. Who was this enemy to question their devotion, as if it were a matter that even required asking?

“Just as I thought. I have a query for you then, one that you are in a unique position to answer. Would you ever inflict harm on your human charge to make them stronger?”

The enemy’s eyebrows furrowed. This was the moment that Tsuna had been waiting for. This was the chink in the impenetrable armour.

Without even a flicker of hesitation, Tsuna summoned an ice javelin into their hands and hurled it straight at the enemy’s exposed neck. They didn’t wait to see it hit its target. Instead, Tsuna immediately sharpened their hearing to its furthest limits until they could hear the cry of a hawk a thousand paces away, until they could hear the creaking of the earth tilting on its axis, until they could hear the faintest ruffle of feathers as the enemy moved.

As soon as Tsuna caught the sound, they tracked its trajectory and, with a burst of speed that left ice crystals trailing in the air behind them, they threw themselves at the enemy and pinned him to the floor.

Tsuna let go of their breath. The ice crystals shuddered and then gently thawed into snowflakes. They were straddling the enemy’s hips, immobilising them with their thighs and the tips of their elongated fingernails against his delicate throat. The enemy was staring at them with wide eyes.

“The answer to your question,” Tsuna replied, offence seeping into their usual level tone. “Is never.”

“Even if it is for their own good? To teach them how to defend against greater evils?”

“Your strategy is too narrow-minded. What kind of protector are you if your human can’t even trust you? If you encounter an obstacle and can’t think of another way?”

The enemy fell silent and the human part of Tsuna felt unbearably agitated with the need to speak. His djinn self flared up with disapproval, every one of Tsuna’s instincts urging him that they currently had the upper hand but the enemy was far from fully incapacitated.

After a brief struggle, his djinn reluctantly melted back into the burrows of Tsuna’s soul, albeit with the dark promise of a slit jugular if the need arose.

Tsuna shook his head a little to shake loose that morbid image. His eyes faded from silvery moonlight to their normal brown hue. His hair now seemed softer, his cheeks rounder and rosier. He blinked at Reborn and then scrambled off him with a vivid flush. Reborn sat up. Now that Tsuna wasn't attacking, he seemed content with simply watching him.

“Hold on. This is so confusing,” Tsuna mumbled to the ground, rubbing the heel of his hands to his eyes “I thought you were a bad person for hurting Dino. But the way you speak about him, it’s as if you...care about him?”

There was a flicker in Reborn’s expression. “...He is under my protection.”

“But how are you protecting him by injuring him?” Tsuna cried in frustration. “How does that even make sense? I don’t get it!”

“Because, Tsunayoshi Sawada,” Reborn said darkly. “He is the Cavallone heir. He will inherit the title of the Sun Citadel’s fifth richest noble, along with all the daggers to his back that come with that honour. It is not enough for him to be great. In order to survive, he must be _extraordinary."_

“We’re still talking about Dino, right?” Tsuna said dubiously. “That same Dino who can’t walk ten paces without tripping over something?”

“You see the complication already. Dino Cavallone, despite all my finest efforts, has not even managed to swing a sword without it somehow flying out of his hands and into the nearest valuable vase.” Reborn let out a tiny exhale. “I admit I may have grown...frustrated. Most humans will demonstrate a burst of uncharacteristic strength when thrown into  a life threatening experience but my student has not responded to any extreme stimuli. I did not realise the extent to which he was becoming injured.”

“You couldn’t see he was getting bruises and cuts?”

“I am not...adept as judging what humans consider to be serious injuries, nor their pain tolerance. They appeared superficial to myself.”

Tsuna could still feel his chafed wrists and ankles, now only a lingering ache as his enhanced healing has done its work. It occurred to him that maybe the ropes being too tight hadn’t actually been intentional on Reborn’s part. “The way you teach is wrong. You’re not supposed to hurt someone who’s your student at all. You get that, right?”

“It is, perhaps, starting to dawn on me,” Reborn said quietly. He paused. “It was when I saw all that blood, when he ran away the next day...He was supposed to catch the knife. Even dodging it would have been acceptable. We had been practising assassination attempts for a whole week. But he threw up his arms over his head instead. He must have been more tired than I anticipated…”

Tsuna had no idea what to say to this.

“Did you know, Tsunayoshi Sawada, that I am knowledgeable in a thousand and one techniques for ending a human life? But when I sat by my unconscious student’s bedside the entire night, I was aware for the first time that I had never learnt a single one on how to keep a human alive.”

Unable to think of words of his own, Tsuna reached out to borrow ones from his dearest friend. “My mother always said that it’s never too late to change who you are.”

“Your mother sounds like a wise human.”

“She definitely was.” Tsuna smiled ruefully to himself. “You should explain everything to Dino. Tell him you’re sorry.”

“...He will never forgive me.”

“I guess so,” Tsuna said. “But he deserves an apology at least. You’d have to work pretty hard to make him like you after all this.”

Reborn chuckled and then looked surprised, as if he didn’t know he was capable of the sound. “That is true. You are an interesting creature, Tsunayoshi Sawada. I have been following my student from a distance and watched his interactions with you.”

“That’s, that’s really creepy…”

“From the moment I met him, I have sensed an immense potential in my student, one that I had not discovered a method of unlocking. But when I saw him drag the weight of his camel to stop you from travelling alone, a new theory dawned upon me: Dino Cavallone does not draw into his strength to defend himself, but rather to protect _others_.” Tsuna shivered at Reborn’s slanting smile. “It is a hypothesis I look forward to testing.”

“ _Without_ hurting him. Um, I mean. Please.”

“Naturally. I am also rather curious about yourself. You are incredibly loyal towards my student considering you have made his acquaintance for less than a day. I wonder, what kind of life have you been living, for you to idolise the basic amount of affection that he gave you?”

Tsuna drew his shoulders into himself. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then stood up and studied the night sky. Reborn also rose to his feet next to him. “That’s a bit harsh Reborn.”

“It is merely an observation. Besides,” Reborn carried on, with a hint of humour. “You attempted to stab me four times tonight. That was a bit harsh of _you_.”

That startled a laugh out of Tsuna. The horizon was lightning from inky black to subtle shades of blue. The darkest part of the night had passed and eventually, the sun would rise again. Warmth would soak into every grain of sand and make his path to the Sun Citadel glow golden. What a simple yet reassuring thing, to know that no matter what joys or sorrows life may bring, the dance of the universe would always remain the same.

This has been a crazy day and an even crazier night,” Tsuna said. “But I’m glad we got everything sorted out in the end—”

“REBORN!”

Tsuna jumped in surprise and, unless he was mistaken, that was definitely a flinch from Reborn.

He looked around only to find a figure towering over them. Dino had managed to find a way to not only sneak up on them silently but also climb on top of the cave without any visible injuries. He had an embroidered scarf wrapped around his forehead in a makeshift war headband. His face was pale with a frightening rage. 

He was also brandishing a kebab skewer as an impromptu sword.

“GIVE BACK TSUNA, YOU ABSOLUTE MONSTER!” Dino roared.

Reborn raised an eyebrow.“Is that the best weapon you could find? It seems like you still have a lot to learn, you hopeless student.”

Tsuna groaned and as the inevitable confrontation exploded into action, he buried his face in his hands.

“ _I can’t believe I forgot to tell Dino I’m not kidnapped anymore._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took the name djinn from Islamic beliefs but that's the only similarity they hold. I also wanted to make possessed-by-a-djinn Tsuna kind of like hyper dying will Tsuna, but also different at the same time.
> 
> P.S. sorry for any typos! I am sleep deprived and will fix them tomorrow haha


	3. I Saw You In My Dreams

Reborn was sitting alone.

Tsuna fidgeted at the entrance flap of Dino’s tent, which Tsuna had been sharing at Dino’s insistence. He felt as if he was straddling an invisible divide.

On one side there was Dino, sprawled on his back in a rumpled silk nightgown and snoring loudly. It had taken Tsuna far too much wriggling and internal whining to escape from those deceptively thin arms. Of course Dino had to be someone who cuddled in his sleep, as if latching onto Tsuna in his every waking moment wasn’t already enough to satisfy him.

On the other side of the divide was Reborn. Every night, he would sit on the same cashmere rug with his back half turned towards the tent. With one knee drawn into his chest, he kept watch over the camp.

Tsuna still wasn’t sure if Reborn even needed to sleep, since it was a mystery what kind of creature he was under his human guise. Still, there was something about the curve of Reborn’s spine in those dark watchful hours that seemed kind of lonely.

Dino would be unbearably upset if he caught Tsuna alone with Reborn. It had been a week since he had single-handedly trekked across the desert to rescue a ‘kidnapped’ Tsuna from his violent tutor. Needless to say, when Dino arrived the situation had gone to hell in a wicker basket. He had tried to skewer Reborn on his impromptu kebab stick weapon and, when that tragically failed, settled for screaming accusations while shielding a feebly protesting Tsuna with his body. Tsuna had mustered the courage to escape from the incredibly one-sided argument in favour of feeding Enzo some pistachios.

Sometimes, you just needed to let the other person yell at you until they were finally out of steam. Tsuna wondered whether Reborn was finding this experience about human emotions educational.

In the end, Dino had refused to accept Reborn’s stilted apology. Judging from Reborn’s silent sigh, it didn’t come as a surprise to him. There was, however, the small issue that Dino was still very much the heir of the fifth most influential noble family in the Sun Citadel, had run away from home without politely informing anyone, and had the entire family’s guard as well as a sizeable portion of the citadel’s military being paid to search for him.

“Your mother and father,” Reborn had said. “Are incredibly worried about you.”

“Of course they are,” Dino had countered weakly. “I’m their precious heir.”

“Perhaps. I have heard interesting stories from the maids though. Stories that your father is still bedridden with old age but asks for you every time he has enough awareness to converse. Stories that your mother, the famed ice queen of the nobles, cries herself to sleep every night.” Reborn paused. “Perhaps, Dino Cavallone, they simply miss their son.”

With those words hanging in the air, the atmosphere had shifted. Dino had still kept glaring at Reborn but his eyes had become misty. He didn’t protest when Reborn stated that they would return to Dino’s family home to reassure his parents that he was safe. Since Tsuna had been travelling to the Sun Citadel anyway, Dino had once again insisted that Tsuna should travel with them.

Unbeknown to Dino, Reborn had taken Tsuna aside while Dino had been distracted by Enzo making a run for it (Tsuna thought it would be best not to mention that Reborn had whispered something into Enzo’s ear and then made an expression that, although Tsuna hadn’t been able to see,  had made every strand of Enzo’s fur stand on end).

Reborn had looked at Tsuna, completely expressionless, before ordering him to stop his needless worrying. Reborn said that he would be shielding their group to prevent any creatures from noticing their presence and no, he would not divulge to Tsuna how exactly he was able to do that. Tsuna had no idea why but there was something about his body’s shared accommodation that made other djinns flock to his vicinity after sunset, usually with many pointy weapons and a psychotic thirst for his blood. It was the reason that, up until Reborn’s words, he had been so wary about travelling with anyone else.

And so began his travels with Dino and Reborn. It was probably one of the most uncomfortable situations he had ever been put in and considering the fact that he was sharing his body with a djinn, that was saying a lot. Dino may have grudgingly accepted Reborn as a travelling companion but the slightest of teasing comments from Reborn was liable to set him into a huff.

It all left Tsuna exhausted, especially since he was being treated like a rag doll in their tug-of-war. He peered once more at Dino and, nervously hoping that he was in a deep sleep, stepped out of the tent.

The open air was crisp and clear and flowed in a gentle breeze. It was a jarring change from the stuffy tent interior, turned uncomfortably sweltering by Dino’s clinging embrace. Tsuna rubbed his sleeveless arms and shivered. Reborn made no sign to acknowledge Tsuna’s presence but the left side of the rug had been left vacant, almost as if Reborn had foreseen that Tsuna would be joining him tonight. Tsuna lowered himself to sit beside Reborn, only to find a woollen shawl folded neatly by his feet.

Sometimes, Tsuna wondered how Reborn has such an uncanny way of knowing things. Then Tsuna would mentally slap himself since he probably was _much_ happier living in ignorant bliss.

The breeze danced up Tsuna’s forearms and across the nape of his neck. Tsuna wrapped the shawl around his shoulders.

It was warm.

“Thank you,” Tsuna said.

Reborn made an expression that he had picked up over the last few days. He liked to call it a smile. Dino called it ‘what a djinn does with its mouth to pick out the blood of its victims out of its teeth’.

He had a pocket knife in his hand. It was twirling seamlessly between his long fingers in an absent minded manner. Tsuna watched it spin and as his gaze wandered, he did a double take.

“There’s something on your leg!” Tsuna exclaimed. Perfectly balanced on Reborn’s bent knee was a strange creature. It looked like a lizard except its head was too bulky and it had a weirdly curled tail.

“I am aware,” Reborn said with what Tsuna had come to learn was his subtle dry humour. “It is merely Leon.”

“What’s a leon?”

“His name is Leon.”

In a swift blur, knife in Reborn’s hand sliced at Leon’s belly.

Tsuna gave a cry and his hands leapt to his mouth in horror.

“Reborn!” Tsuna exclaimed. “Why-- why would you…”

Tsuna trailed off in confusion. He had definitely seen the blade strike at the creature but no blood had been shed. In fact, the creature hadn’t even flinched from its frozen stance...A shaving of emerald painted wood floated off from Leon’s belly. Tsuna suddenly blushed at his own misunderstanding.

Reborn silently passed Leon to Tsuna, slowly pressing it into Tsuna’s upturned hands, palm to palm. Even for Reborn, this was an unusual level of delicacy. This creature must be something precious to him, so Tsuna tried his best to be careful. He slowly inspected Leon from the left, right, belly and spine.

“It’s a wooden statue,” Tsuna said in astonishment. “But it looks so real! Did you make it yourself?”

Reborn nodded.

“Wow! Reborn, that’s amazing!” Tsuna gushed. With his head bent over Leon, he didn’t see Reborn’s cheekbones tinge a rare diluted pink. “I’ve never seen a lizard like this before. Does it live in a faraway land?”

“That is one way you could view it.”

“What do you mean?” Tsuna said, looking up.

“It means, Tsunayoshi Sawada,” Reborn said. “I...do not know.”

Tsuna’s eyes widened in surprise. Albeit for their fateful first encounter, Tsuna had never seen Reborn be less than fully certain in everything he said and did. Confidence wasn’t quite the right word for it. Tsuna was pretty sure that in Reborn’s otherworldly mind, the notion of being wrong or not knowing everything simply didn’t exist.

“That is not an accurate expression,” Reborn added with mild haste. “I may not have confirmed evidence, but my hypothesis and reasoning is sound.”

Then he must have taken pity on Tsuna’s baffled face because he elaborated, with far more words strung together than Tsuna had heard from him on their entire journey. “Observe Leon. He is not a lizard, but rather a creature called a _chameleon_. They are renowned for their ability to change the colour of their skin to hide in plain sight. It is a gift even the highest assassins in any land would give their beating hearts for.”

Tsuna had been mouthing the word _chameleon_ , trying to shape its clunky weight with his lips, but he dropped it when Reborn mentioned—“ _Colour changing?_ That’s impossible! Are you trying to tease me again?”

“I assure you, I am not in the habit.”

“Yeah right...Is it magical then?”

“It is completely non-magical.”

“Wow, I can’t believe it...What land did you see it in? Or maybe you saw it in a book, or a painting…?”

It seemed that this was what Reborn had been waiting for. He finally turned fully towards Tsuna so that they were face to face, heart to heart, two shadowed figures with the embers of the campfire glowing a slumbering red behind them. Tsuna looked into Reborn’s eyes and saw all the mysterious stars from the sky above reflected back at him.

Tsuna held his breath.

“You see, Tsunayoshi Sawada, I saw Leon in a dream.”

“... _What_?”

And so Reborn explained.

He would sometimes see flashes of memories that were not his own, but felt intimately familiar as if he had lived them in other lives, perhaps even in other worlds. There were worlds where scaled beasts soared across the skies with featherless wings and human-like creatures walked with pointed ears. There were worlds where humans traversed the stars in shiny carriages and shot light from metal sticks. There were even worlds that looked a bit similar to the one Reborn knew, except humans lived in tall glass towers and had miniature suns that could light up a room.

It was the last world that Reborn saw again and again and again. Although Reborn had lived many lives in this world, there were things that always stayed the same each time. He was paid to point a metal tube at certain unlucky heads, to curl his finger around the lever, to watch their brains crown their hair. He fought with dazzling flames that were a brighter yellow than any turmeric spice. He was a grown man, then a young babe, then a grown man again.

Tsuna’s eyes drooped as Reborn carried on. His hushed voice was steady in tone and had a deep thrum, as if each letter carried a power that made Reborn’s throat vibrate before parting from his tongue. It was lulling but Tsuna didn’t want to sleep. He had not had an undisturbed sleep ever since...He just didn’t want to sleep.

Tsuna stifled a yawn and his shoulders slumped. Reborn was talking now about the people he had met in his memories, his visions. A child with a floating tome who could talk to the stars and knew things that others did not. A woman with a face sweeter than jasmine and with cooking more venomous than a snake. A boy whose pet swelled bigger than ten camels if touched with water.

And as Tsuna’s eyes finally slid shut, his body found itself leaning on something solid. Reborn’s voice had fallen silent but now it began again. Now he was murmuring about a boy who was the one he saw the most vividly, a boy with flames warmer than the sun, a boy whose hands had been forcibly bathed in bruises and blood. In some lives, the blood grew thicker and his mouth forgot how to smile. In others, he laughed often and knocked the chess pieces off the board and flipped the entire game upside down.

As Tsuna’s mind fogged with drowsiness, he could barely hear what was being said...something about this boy using his heart to shield those in need...something about this boy seeming more and more familiar the more Reborn talked to Tsuna…

Someone else had started speaking...Tsuna groaned for them to be quiet. They immediately shut up but then hurriedly picked up their conversation in a heated whisper.

“...hell you think you’re doing…”

“...put his head on my shoulder…”

“...such a liar…"

“...not want to wake him up, would you…”

“...hurt him…”

“...would never…”

Tsuna fell asleep.

 

* * *

 

As always, like a curse, Tsuna dreamt.

His hands were trembling as he brushed his mother’s hair. Tsuna’s hand was going through the motions: settle the comb at the strong roots, carefully run it down to the ends, raise it back to the roots.

Settle it at the roots, run it down to the healthy ends, raise it back to the ends.

No, raise it back to the roots. Run it down to the fraying ends. Raise it to the…

To the, to to ends...no, to the roots. Run it down to the roots. No wait, that wasn’t right either. Why were his fingers shaking so bad? He had to stop it. He had to be steady. He had to grasp the hair but it was slipping through his fingers, it was withering in a rainfall of skeletal petals, it was…

Tsuna’s mother was there smiling at him. Tsuna leaned into her bony hand on his cheek and closed his eyes.

“It’s okay, my flower,” she said. “I can brush my own hair you know. You don’t have to help me every time.”

“I know,” Tsuna said.

They were both lying.

Then Tsuna was running, his sandals slapping hard against the dirt path. He had a kitten clutched to his chest. It was by his heart. This was important, that the kitten was by his heart. The kitten had been quavering in the village garbage dump with a protruding rib cage and funny looking leg.

Then Tsuna’s mother was scooping Tsuna into her chest, just like Tsuna had done with the kitten. She was shaking her head and Tsuna was sobbing no, he didn’t want the kitten to go to heaven.

Ah.

The leg had been broken.

Tsuna had been jostling the kitten as he ran and it had probably died from blood loss.

The kitten would have lived if Tsuna had been better, if he had done _something_ different.

Those woeful feline eyes were staring at him like an executioner’s blade, a blade that came out of nowhere and severed Tsuna’s neck and as his head fell, the kitten was wearing his mother’s face and she was crying and crying and—

_That is enough._

A light enveloped Tsuna and it was warm, just like the woollen shawl that Tsuna had once wrapped around his shoulders, although he couldn’t really remember when that happened or who gave it to him. The heat seeped into his bones until it was pulsing alongside the rhythm of his heart. For a moment, his entire existence transcended to what no creature of earth was built to bear.

Then that foreign presence let go of its embrace but that was okay because the skies were blue now. Tsuna was twirling and playing in a meadow of sweetcorn stalks, green and vibrant. Each stalk danced when Tsuna touched it and he could hear their gentle songs, a melody of earth and life just for him.

Tsuna was picked up and he shrieked with delight. He was a toddler and his mother was here, young and rosy-cheeked and spinning him around in her strong arms.

Golden sunshine and honey-sweet laughs filled the rest of Tsuna’s dreams.

 

* * *

 

“Look!” Dino yelled excitedly. “Look, I can see it! Oh thank the angels, we’re _finally_ here! Come on Tsuna!”

“Wait up—” Tsuna said but it was too late. Dino was already kicking his heel into Enzo’s side, who surprisingly only huffed a little before breaking into a wobbly gallop. Tsuna watched him dash off into the distance before looking helplessly at Reborn.

Reborn merely raised an eyebrow.

“Thanks Reborn. Helpful as always,” Tsuna muttered. He fiddled with his reins, or rather, the rope of patterned scarves that Dino had looped together to help Tsuna keep his balance. Tsuna was riding Reborn’s own horse, a steed that had trotted over to dignifiedly ask Tsuna for some pistachios during Dino and Reborn's big argument. Needless to say, having an insanely tall horse appear from thin air had nearly given Tsuna a heart attack.

Her name was Haizum and she was a black beauty with powerful muscles, a high tail carriage and an exquisitely refined head. When Reborn had claimed that Tsuna should ride her because he was the weakest in their group, Tsuna had been unable to bring up his powers and all their stamina benefits in front of Dino. Dino, meanwhile, had gaped speechlessly at Reborn. Tsuna had felt as if he was missing something important but for the life of him he couldn't figure out what.

In the end, Dino’s drive to protect Tsuna won over his dislike of agreeing with Reborn and that was that, never mind Tsuna’s opinion on what method of travelling _he_ preferred. Reborn seemed perfectly content to stride alongside them, never falling behind a single step. Occasionally, he would feign tiredness, sit behind Tsuna and distract him with dizzying conversations. This was purely to get a rise out of Dino, since Tsuna had the feeling that Reborn could walk to the edge of the world without breaking a sweat.

“Let’s go Haizum,” Tsuna told his horse and that was enough for her to sprint forward. Tsuna could have sworn she was as intelligent as a human, since she never needed more than the lightest of touches to guide her. As she raced against the parting wind, her gait was smooth as if Tsuna was sitting on a chair and the world was the one travelling past him. Tsuna saw Dino on the top of a steep sand dune. His toy-sized figure rapidly enlarged as Tsuna got closer and closer, until Tsuna was soon there right next to him.

“Can you really see it?” Tsuna asked but as soon as he looked at Dino’s lively face, he already knew his answer. It had been a long journey in more ways than one and Dino’s happiness was infectious.

“The citadel of gold. The citadel of knights. The citadel of fabled angels.” Dino said. “I thought if I ever came back here, it would be with me kicking and screaming. But I just feel relieved. Sickeningly nervous, as well. But definitely relieved.”

“You’re home again,” Tsuna said and Dino grinned wryly.

“Home sweet home.”

They gazed upon the Sun Citadel together. From this distance it looked so small that Tsuna could cup it in one hand, but it still stole Tsuna’s breath away. It rose majestically from the barren desert, an ivory paradise of towers and arches and mysterious sparkling lights. The citadel was encircled by a great wall with several gates of gold. From each gate, tiny dots that were camels and merchants and loaded wagons trailed out into the dips and rises of the shimmering sands like brightly coloured snakes.

“It’s so beautiful,” Tsuna sighed.

“Do not worry, you will become disenchanted with it in no time at all,” Reborn said from behind. He ignored Dino’s scowl as he joined Tsuna’s side. “I would ask where in the citadel you are planning on visiting but…”,

Tsuna ducked his head, unable to meet that intense gaze. Whenever Reborn looked at him like that, which was most of the time actually, Tsuna felt as if his soul was being exposed and laid bare for judgement.

“I think with that face of yours, it will be easy to find where you will be accommodated.”

Dino’s head whipped between Tsuna and Reborn. “What? What are you guys on about? Don't leave me out, tell me!”

“Maybe later,” Tsuna said, which of course meant absolutely never if he could help it. “Um, if it’s okay, I think I want to enter the gates by myself. You guys kind of grab too much attention...”

“No we don’t,” Dino laughed, his gaudy ruby necklace sparkling in the sunlight. “Don’t be silly Tsuna, come with us. We won’t have to queue to get in and you’re going to stay with me at my manor, right? Right?”

“I mean, but, uh,” Tsuna stammered. Reborn, that bastard, was actually doing that not-a-smile thing again as if he found this all mildly entertaining. “It’s just! I want to, uh, explore the citadel myself! Like, like an ordinary person who doesn’t have rich friends...”

Then Tsuna halted as he realised his own words and looked uncertainly at Dino, wondering if he’d offended him. To his amazement, Dino’s eyes were filling with tears.

“I understand,” Dino said thickly, clapping a bejeweled hand on Tsuna’s shoulder. “You want to see how the peasants live, just like one of them yourself. What a charitable thought! I used to sneak out and dress in rags and do the same myself. Come on, let’s ditch Reborn and—”

“What an an interesting plan,” Reborn said. He clapped his hand on Dino’s own shoulder which made him flinch. His not-smile had stretched wider. “Come, let us discuss it in depth while _just the two of us_ await your mother’s court.”

Reborn pulled a loudly protesting Dino ahead, Enzo following obediently with a wave of Reborn’s hand. Tsuna awkwardly swung his legs over Haizum and hopped off. She dipped her head at him, a bow which he clumsily returned, and peaceful trotted ahead to her owner.

Tsuna watched the eccentric group make their way down to the Sun Citadel and listened to the sound of their bickering until it slowly faded out.

Then he looked at the awaiting horizon and took a deep breath.


	4. I Knew Your Familiar Face

Tsuna wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and grimaced. His skin was uncomfortably flushed as if he had a fever. The spare clothes Dino had ‘persuaded’ him to wear (by wrestling Tsuna’s threadbare tunic off his back and cheerfully tossing it into the campfire) was plastered to his body with sweat. It. Was _Boiling_.

Sure, Tsuna could have avoided the scorching afternoon sun if he had made the final trek to the Sun Citadel in the morning. But after parting ways with Dino and Reborn, Tsuna’s anxiety had become a nest of wasps hurtling inside his stomach. Tsuna had ended up sitting on that sand dune with his chin resting on his drawn up knees.

He had tried to distract himself from throwing up by watching Dino and Reborn’s retreating figures. When they had shrunk to mere specks in the distance, Tsuna’s breathing had become steadier and he knew he couldn’t put it off any longer.

What Tsuna hadn’t anticipated was the heat.

The thing was, wandering through the desert with no turban or proper shade was perfectly fine as long as you were _alone_. At first, Tsuna had survived the journey simply by passing out a lot and his djinn taking over his body to keep them going. Tsuna instinctively knew there must be some way to learn how to use his djinn's powers while remaining in full control, as opposed to sinking back and merging his consciousness with his djinn’s. There was something about collapsing flat on your face every morning and waking up every night with sand on your tongue and the vague feeling you had walked a thousand paces that was a great motivator for said learning.

So Tsuna had concentrated harder than he ever had in his life and listened to his djinn’s murmurs and _learned_. Thankfully, the days of accidentally trapping himself in a giant ice block were long behind him. Just before bumping into Dino, Tsuna had gotten to the point where he could keep his own skin comfortably cool (if all else failed, at least Tsuna could prostitute himself as a human cooler).

The only problem was that Tsuna still couldn’t stop his eyes from illuminating silver, nor the ice droplets that would crystallize on his skin like intricate lace. Tsuna hadn’t been able to use his cooling trick around Dino but strangely enough, he had barely noticed the sun when travelling with him and Reborn. There was something about Reborn’s presence that made everything feel weirdly transcendental, as if heat or hunger or restless nights were frivolous things that happened to lesser beings.

But in the last part of Tsuna’s journey, there had been no Reborn to work his strange magic and there was no way Tsuna would have risked working his own. The chances of bumping into other travellers had been much higher this close to the Sun Citadel. Tsuna was happier avoiding any raised eyebrows and, more importantly, raised weapons.

So Tsuna had sweltered and panted and taken the better part of the afternoon just to reach the nearest citadel gate, because it turned out that just because the Sun Citadel was in _sight_ didn’t mean it wasn’t still _exhaustingly far away_. Every step was laden with more than just physical weight. There was nothing Tsuna would have loved more than to run in the opposite direction and to try his luck living as a goat herder instead, or a cave hermit, or literally anything else that would take him incredibly far away from where he was heading.

Somehow though, Tsuna had made it. There must have been at least one angel looking down at him from above and Tsuna owed them a mithai basket.

That was how Tsuna ended up standing in the queue for Gate Rose. According to Dino’s lively stories, Gate Rose was the citadel’s southern gate and the closest for their travelling group to enter by. The others were Gate Jasmine in the north, Gate Iris in the east and Gate Saffron in the west. It was a common legend, Dino had embellished dramatically, that the citadel wall was an ancient monument built in a time before humans walked on the sands. The angels had drawn a circle in the sand and laid a blessed flower on four points. From that circle a wall had sprouted from the earth to the heavens, leaving gaps only where each flower lay so that any creature in need of divine protection could enter within.

“So is it really hard to get through the gates?” Tsuna had wondered. The closest thing his village had to a boundary was the village fence, a rickety line of bramble branches strung together with twine. During daytime, the adults could climb the ladders over the fence if they needed to, whether it was to water the outer crop fields or herd their goats in search for shrubbery. The idea of an actual wall trapping all the buildings and people inside was strange and intimidating.

“Nah. They let anyone in as long as they’re not some kind of weirdo or criminal. It’s good for their business and all that. But if you’ve got bad intentions in your heart or you’re some kind of evil djinn, the moment you step through those gates…” Dino had flung up his arms and the campfire seemed to flare up in unison. “Boom!”

“Boom?" Tsuna had asked weakly.

“The gates set you on fire! Cos they’re magical and divine and totally awesome!”

“Oh. Ahaha. Great. Awesome.” Tsuna had snuck a glance at Reborn, who mimicked his head exploding, mouthed ‘boom’ and then gave a horribly amused smirk.

...Tsuna really shouldn’t have thought about that conversation. He couldn’t stop tugging at his flamboyantly sequined neckline as the queue shuffled forward faster than his liking. Tsuna had never seen more people in one place in all his life. The crowd was packed with wagons wobbling high with wares and children sitting on top, kicking their legs and tossing dice between their palms. Men and woman in jewelled turbans argued in voices as rapid as their hand gestures, their topics darting from inflation and percentages to the current value of gold and the costs of hiring bodyguards to defend their caravans from djinn attacks. Camels wandered off to wherever they could smell dates in pockets, their owners squeezed through to recapture them but quickly got distracted by greeting old acquaintances, and the children were making a game out of throwing dates onto turbans below and then scrambling out of walking stick whacking distance.

A date soared towards Tsuna; he automatically plucked it out of the air and then, realising what he had done, hastily tossed it aside. He hoped no one had noticed. He hoped no one was looking at him at all. Everything sounded muffled but too loud at the same time, just like that one time the village children had held his head in a basin of soapy laundry water.

The fortified citadel wall loomed above him. It was so tall that Tsuna couldn’t see its top even when he craned his neck. What he could see didn’t make him feel much better: unnaturally smooth stone slabs that gleamed a wicked ivory, intricate sigils painted in a suspicious shade of red, and slim arrow slits where shadowy figures flitted in and out of sight.

The conversations around him were blurring into one rambunctious noise and he couldn’t pick out if anyone was talking about him, secretly pointing at him, whispering in each other’s ears _that’s the one, that’s the boy that’s going to be set on fire._

This was the life-or-death question: how much of your body needed to be djinn for the gates of the Sun Citadel to brand you as an enemy?

Tsuna took a few steps forward as the queue shuffled forward again. When he had asked Dino what would purely hypothetically happen if you survived the gate’s fire or somehow managed to escape, Dino had simply barked out a laugh. _Oh Tsuna_ , he had said with uncharacteristic grimness, _that’s what the Lynxes are for_.

Tsuna’s eyes darted around. There were four Lynxes in sight: two standing on either side of Gate Rosa, and two patrolling the stretch of wall to the left and right. There were undoubtedly more Lynxes closer to the actual gate but Tsuna’s sight was obscured by the people in front of him.

The queue moved. Another few steps forward. The Sun Citadel’s official gate guards was how Dino had described the Lynxes, respected and feared in equal measure. From this distance, Tsuna thought he could see the Lynxes’ chests glimmer in the bright sunlight.

Another few steps forward. Tsuna squinted and then gave a soft oh. The Lynxes hadn’t painted themselves gold, which seemed like a pretty ridiculous thought now but how was he supposed to know how these city folk did things? They were in fact wearing sleeveless chainmail vests. They looked nothing like the clunky lump of metal that one of the village elders proudly displayed in front of guests. No, this chainmail was delicately thin and moved fluidly with every tiny movement like a second skin.

Yet another few steps forward. Accompanying the chainmail was a uniform of thin black sirwals and lightweight leather boots. Here were men and women, Tsuna’s djinn calculated, that were trained to move quicker than a breath of wind.

“Next!”

The authoritative shout from one of the Lynxes at the gate snapped Tsuna to attention. He must have been caught up in his whirling thoughts for a long time; the line between him and Gate Rose had shrunk drastically to less than twenty people.

He could now see the gate itself; although the citadel walls were impossibly high, Gate Rose was less than the height of five grown men. It was an architecture of beauty; Tsuna had seen similar artwork on pottery and china, but never on a scale like this. He had no idea how they could make all those tiny triangle and square tiles fit in seamless patterns without a single gap. The gateway was shaped like a giant keyhole and both of its doors were wide open. Beyond its arch was a tunnel that, ten paces within, was swallowed whole by an impenetrable darkness.

The gate entrance had four stations with a boundary line in front. A Lynx was standing guard at the front of the boundary with a whistle around her neck. She was directing whoever was at the front of the queue to the next available station as soon as it became free.

Tsuna caught sight of a middle-aged woman being escorted to a station on the right. As a Lynx at a desk sat her down for questioning, his partner took her mango cart aside and pulled off its canvas covers. Tsuna watched in bleak transfixation as the Lynx methodically waved his curved sword over every handspan of the cart.

The blade began to glow white-hot, like embers alight in a fire.

Tsuna choked on a cry. He could _feel_ that. He dug his nails into his palms to hide how they had suddenly elongated. His djinn was thrumming in his heartbeat, pulsing in his lungs, curling around Tsuna’s limbs in readiness to leap forward at the slightest provocation.

Tsuna had been ambushed by enough djinns in the desert to know what their aura felt like—biting and frigid, like needles prickling along your spine. But the aura from this Lynx’s blade, no, all of the Lynxes’ blades now that Tsuna was concentrating, was the complete opposite. It was an aura that was sinking under Tsuna’s flesh and was heating his bones from within.

Tsuna’s djinn hissed a single, seething word between their merged souls.

_Angelic._

Tsuna’s mind whirred as he stared at the glowing blade, which was now being passed under the belly of the cart. So the rumours were true then—the Sun Citadel warriors really _did_ have some kind of special connection with the angels.

Everyone believed in angels of course, but it was a belief up there with Fate and Destiny and other vague notions that seemed like common sense yet were confusingly hard to explain if asked. Newborn babies wore trinkets that their grandmas insisted had divine protection, and travelling merchants yelled to passersby that their swords and arrows were imbued with ‘ _real_ angelic bone dust discovered in a mysterious, far away cave, any three for sixty rupees, it’s a real bargain!’.

But Tsuna hadn’t given much thought on angels until he had been drowning in a well, until he had cradled a dying djinn in his arms, until he had finally been submerged not in water but by a foreign presence rushing into his own soul and curling up in the hole in Tsuna’s heart. Although Tsuna’s mind was still his own, unfamiliar knowledge still tended to stray into his head—such as that angels definitely existed, that they had waged war with djinns since the beginning of time, and how their flames could make djinns _burn_.

There were three people left in the queue in front of Tsuna. Every muscle in his body was tensed as he watched the Lynx give one final sweep of his blade over the mango seller herself. Two people remaining in the queue. The angelic blade had been activated for a while now and Tsuna hadn’t felt any pain, but who knew if that would change once it was his turn. One person left. Would it crumble his body to ashes if it touched his skin, or would his djinn wrench control of Tsuna’s body and shed a bloodbath before that could happen?

The man ahead of Tsuna was directed to a station, leaving Tsuna at the front of the queue. He bit his lip. Between the angelic blades, the gate and the Lynxes themselves, this was impossible. There was no way Tsuna could do this.

The whistle blew. The Lynx pointed her arm to the station on the far left and, obeying helplessly, Tsuna went.

Oh nooo. He was doing this. He _really,_ _really didn’t want to do this._

Tsuna walked over to the station desk and gingerly sat down on the edge of the stool. He folded his hands in his lap, then attempted to neaten his perpetually wayward hair, then dropped his hand to his sides when the Lynx behind the desk cleared his throat.

Tsuna looked up and his lips parted in surprise. Unlike the other Lynxes, the one in front of Tsuna wasn’t an adult but a boy as young as Tsuna himself. He wore the same uniform and tattoo on his left shoulder—a calligraphy of strokes forming the outline of a lynx cat—but he didn’t yet have his comrades’ lean muscles, wildly dyed hair or multiple piercings. Two gold studs peeked behind the Lynx’s well-combed hair. From the look of his reddened earlobes, he must have gotten them pierced pretty recently.

The Lynx ordered, “State thy full name, please.”

... _Thy_ ? Who used _thy_ in this day and age? The Lynx’s voice had an unfamiliar accent that made Tsuna wonder if his mother tongue was another language. If he had learnt the common language from a book, it was definitely one that was outdated by a hundred years or so.

“Tsunayoshi Sawada,” Tsuna said apprehensively.

“Sawada?”

“Yes…?”

The Lynx narrowed his eyes, shuffled through the immaculate stacks of parchments on his desk and pulled out a particular sheet in the fifth pile. A bead of sweat rolled down Tsuna’s forehead, trickled along the curve of his ear and landed on his sweaty hairline. Tsuna stiffened as the Lynx began reading aloud.

“Dost thou hast any relation, familial or otherwise, with the known criminal Akira Sawada, last sighted transporting illicit drugs in the Lilan sewer network seventeen years and twenty six days ago?”

Tsuna relaxed a little. He blinked rapidly as his brain tried to unclog all of that. “Um, no, I mean, I probably don’t. I mean definitely!” Tsuna hastily added at the foreboding expression on the Lynx’s face. “I definitely don’t have any, er, relation with that guy.”

“Hmm. Next association: dost thou have any relation, familial or otherwise, with the known criminal Ryuzaki Sawada, last sighted stealing the Giglio Nero ancestral jewels on Ruhafza Street sixteen years and fifty seven days ago?”

“No, I don’t. Um, if you don’t mind me asking, how many of these are there? I mean, my family and all of our ancestors have never left our village so you don’t really have to…”

Tsuna trailed off as, without a single change in his serious demeanor, the Lynx unfolded the sheet, then again, then again, until its bottom eventually touched the ground.

“Y-you really, _really_ don’t have to—”

“Dost thou have any relation, familiar or otherwise, with the known criminal Grisia Sawada, last sighted desecrating the king’s carriage sixteen years and thirteen days ago?”

And so the interrogation continued. Tsuna had no idea that while he had been toddling around in nappies, there had been so many people sharing his last name who had nothing better to do than to run around the Sun Citadel, do a bit of casual arson or murder, and then helpfully vanish before the guards could cross them off their execution list. If Tsuna’s mother had ever gotten the chance to meet any of them, she would have given them some very choice words indeed.

Tsuna thanked the heavens when the list finally came to an end. The Lynx moved on to other questions such as where Tsuna was travelling from, the purpose for his visit and how long he intended to stay. Tsuna found them easy to answer since they were so far off the mark from what he was trying to hide. It was a blessing since Tsuna was an absolutely terrible liar; if the Lynx had straight up asked _so what about those djinns, eh?_ then Tsuna would have started trembling on the spot.

While Tsuna was valiantly trying to explain why he didn’t have any belongings other than the fancy clothes he was wearing (A _runaway noble_? No no no, you’ve got it totally wrong, I swear!), he kept faltering because of how the Lynx was staring intently at him.

“—And then I met another traveller on the way here who gave me some clothes to wear,” Tsuna fidgeted as the Lynx leant forward over the desk, “Who, er, I guess he’s a bit rich so that’s why they’re, um, got all these sequins on it,” Tsuna scooted his stool back a little to stop their foreheads bumping, “I, I mean, um...Is something wrong?”

“I don’t understand,” the Lynx said with his eyebrows scrunched up, which made Tsuna want to cry out that _he_ was the one who had no clue what was going on here. “If this really is thy first time visiting the citadel and thou aren’t related to anyone who hath lived here, then why does thy face look so familiar?”

Oh.

Tsuna rubbed the back of his neck and laughed weakly. “That’s weird, I don’t know. Maybe it’s just your imagination...”

“No, I’m certain I’ve seen someone who looks like you before—”

They were interrupted by a loud guffaw. Another Lynx strolled over and slapped her hand on the boy’s back, ignoring how it made him wobble. She had a roguish grin slashed across her cheeks.

“Oi Basil, is that really the best pickup line you can think of?”

Tsuna had forgotten just how young the boy was but it became adorably apparent as he blushed redder than a pomegranate. “I’m not—that is—that is _highly_ inappropriate! I would never be so unprofessional!”

“Rule number one of being a Lynx—there’s no such thing as being professional.” The female Lynx winked at Tsuna. “Newbie here’s a stiffer than stick in a quicksand swamp but just you wait. We’re gonna make a hella fine lad out of him by the time we’re done with him.”

Tsuna jumped as she clapped a hand on his shoulder, unsheathed her sword which began to glow and waved it over Tsuna with an experienced efficiency. Its angelic aura made every hair on Tsuna’s body violently tingle but, miraculously, it didn’t hurt. It felt like brushing shoulders with the burning sun and escaping just before its flames could set you alight.

“Any bags with you? No? Great, off you go then.”

He stumbled as he was pushed past a second barrier and towards Gate Rose’s entrance. He glanced over his shoulder but the two Lynxes were too busy quibbling with each other to pay him any further attention.

“I wasn’t finished with questioning him—”

“Oh don’t worry your cute little head, I was keeping an eye on you lot. There’s no point keeping them around after getting through the usual questions.”

“The procedure book clearly states that _both_ partners must stay present for questioning for at least half an hour.”

“What, that age-old lump of junk book? Come on, that cute lass in station three was just begging to be flirted with. Speaking of, what was with all that, pffft, ‘oh hello there stranger, I think I’ve seen your handsome face before’? Ahahaha!”

“I’m telling thee, I didn’t mean it that way!”

Tsuna approached the gate. The entrance was guarded by yet another pair of Lynxes, who nodded at Tsuna  and stepped aside to let him pass. Tsuna looked up at the gate’s extravagantly decorated arch, every tile luminous with more than just sunlight. The whole tunnel is part of the gate, Dino had said. Get to the end of the tunnel and you’re safe.

He just had to make it to the end of the tunnel. 

Tsuna held his breath and stepped over the threshold.

…

..

.

_...What?_

Tsuna didn’t realise he had frozen until a Lynx was yelling from behind to hurry it up. Tsuna hastily apologised and, moving in a trance, let his feet lead him forward. The sunlight quickly withered into darkness as the tunnel swallowed Tsuna whole. The inside of the tunnel had a paved path that was dimly lit by the torches bracketed to the curved walls. Tsuna’s eyes darted around at every flickering flame and every serpentine shadow, his shoulders hunched up to his ears. His pace was cautiously slow, then quickened to a steady stride, then sped up again until Tsuna was on the verge of sprinting.

The arch of white light on the other end of the tunnel stretched bigger and bigger until Tsuna was bursting out of the exit, the open light bright and piercing and dizzying all at once. Tsuna stood there out of breath, barely taking in the gloriously colourful sights in front of him nor the impatient travellers who had caught up behind Tsuna and were pushing their way past.

Tsuna could only look down at his hand as he flexed and unflexed his fingers.

His nails hadn’t sharpened. His pulse hadn’t raced. In fact, his djinn hadn’t reacted at all. Dino definitely seemed to know what he was talking about when it came to the gates’ angelic powers and the Lynxs’ swords seemed to have been working just fine. 

What could it possibly mean if Tsuna’s djinn could walk through the Sun Citadel’s biggest protection without feeling a single lick of heat...and why did Tsuna have such a bad feeling about it?


	5. You Gave Me Your Advice

If someone asked Tsuna to describe his first impression of the Sun Citadel in one word, he would definitely say _colourful_.

After leaving Gate Rose, Tsuna had aimlessly wandered ahead until he was sucked into the crowd rushing along the Silk Road. The Silk Road, as Dino had had described it, was the Sun Citadel’s biggest road and one of its most popular attractions. It led travellers from Gate Rose straight to the Central Market at the heart of Rose District.

With his typical infinite knowledge and flair for spontaneous lecturing, Reborn had elaborated that the citadel used to be a jumbled mess until the Rokudo family had conquered the throne over five hundred years ago. King Mukuro Rokudo I’s plans to bring structure by diving the citadel into four districts and building wide roads had seemed impossible at the time. Most of the citizens had to be forcibly relocated and their numerous protests were violently crushed under the king’s fist. Still, no one could deny that the eventual results had led to the citadel flourishing into the trading capital it was famous for today.

The Silk Road was crammed with as many stalls as would fit on either side, most of them selling the citadel’s trademark export of silk. Every folding table was overflowing with silk kaftans and kameezes, headscarves and handkerchiefs, slippers and sashes and more. There were rolls of fabric in every pattern and hue from floral pinks to royal purples to midnight blues laced with silver beads that shimmered brighter than the constellations in the night sky.

The dazzling colours flashed at Tsuna between the gaps in the crowd. He winced as the press of bodies squeezed him tight; everyone was trampling over each other with a single-minded determination to reach wherever they wanted to go, whether that was a stack of discounted curtains on the left, or a display of hand-stitched purses on the right, or to grudgingly budge out of the way of the donkey-drawn wagons giving paying travellers a ride. The air itself was groaning under the weight of hundreds and hundreds of voices, each stall keeper clamouring to shout their prices louder than their neighbours.

Tsuna passed a stall selling kaftans that had been tie-dyed in kaleidoscopic patterns. He had exchanged the clothes Dino had lent him at an earlier stall by using the infallible power of desperate pleading. Tsuna had felt really guilty for not being able to return Dino’s clothes to him (ignoring Dino’s insistence that Tsuna didn’t need to give them back). The thing was, Dino’s clothes were perfectly fine as long as you didn’t mind being mistaken for a noble with the particularly garish fashion taste of the excessively wealthy. In other words, Tsuna had been attracting street sellers and beggars like flies to a cow’s carcass. No matter how hard Tsuna had tried to explain himself, they refused to believe the simple truth—that Tsuna had travelled all the way to the Sun Citadel without a single coin on him.

Now Tsuna was outfitted in a white dishdasha, an ankle-length tunic made of a cotton fabric. It was wonderfully lightweight and, most importantly, as inconspicuously plain as could be. After all, it wasn’t just coin grabbers that Tsuna wanted to avoid and the less attention he drew to himself, the better. Maybe he was procrastinating doing what he had come to the Sun Citadel for but it wasn’t Tsuna’s fault if he wanted to wander around and explore the citadel first, right? Right?

An old man with a hunched back shouldered past and his pointy elbow unwittingly jabbed Tsuna in the ribs. Tsuna yelped and them immediately tried to relax, tried to project in his mind that he was fine, everything was fine, _his djinn didn’t need to come out for heaven’s sake he was perfectly okay_. It was an uphill battle; with every shove and push from passersby, Tsuna was struggling harder to squash down his djinn’s considerably less forgiving feelings. As a little girl swung her toy sword excitedly, Tsuna’s kneecaps ended up in whacking range.

Tsuna scruffed his face with one hand before anyone saw his eyes flash silver.

He had to get out of here.  

He rolled up his sleeves and, with shaky determination, began to squeeze sideways across the road. He apologised non-stop under his breath at the plentiful curses and complaints that followed in his wake. If it weren’t for his djinn Tsuna would have been trapped in the crowd forever. With every heartbeat, his senses would tingle and his eyes would pinpoint a subtle gap for him to step into with an uncanny precision. Tsuna ended up weaving in and out of a procession of camels, circling around an urchin selling prayer beads from a basket, ducking and dodging and side-stepping until he finally managed to stagger into one of the side streets.

Tsuna braced both arms against the wall to catch his breath. When he straightened up again, he couldn’t help taking in his surroundings curiously. The street had a lot of people but it was considerably less packed than the main road.

Well. Might as well look around for a bit then. It wasn’t like he had anything better (that he wanted) to do.

Tsuna’s feet drifted down the paved path, taking him past open-fronted shops that had no doors or walls where they faced the street. Their wares were spilling out into the open street, tempting prospective buyers to amble inside and hopefully lighten their purses a little. People were leisurely browsing through gold figurines and tapestries, or sipping pomegranate tea on little stools, or waving their hand fans in lumbering circles to cool down. Tsuna drank it all in with wide eyes. He hadn’t been able to pay attention properly in the Silk Road but here he could admire every fascinating detail, from the girl flying her butterfly kite on a rooftop to the way the canopies billowed above in a minute breeze.

Just one more corner, Tsuna told himself as he reached the end of the street and turned left. Just the next one, wait this next one, no _this_ one would be the last and then he’d be somewhat responsible and find somewhere to stay the night.

After he had swapped Dino’s clothes for his plainer outfit, the stall keeper had taken Tsuna aside and reluctantly pressed a light bundle of rupees in his hand, muttering something about cloth quality and not wanting to rob a kid blind. Tsuna had watched his mother haggle at the village market enough time to have a general idea about fabric values; even if you took away the price of his new clothes, Dino’s ones still should have been worth fifty times the money he had been given. It didn’t really bother Tsuna though since he had been in such a rush to change clothes and he hadn’t been looking to make a profit anyway. He felt kind of nervous since he’d never bought a room before. Hopefully he had enough in his pocket for tonight and as for the following days, well, he’d leave tomorrow’s problems to tomorrow’s Tsuna.

As Tsuna turned yet another corner, he realised there was some kind of commotion going on nearby. With each step, the din swelled louder until he could make out the overlapping sounds of cheering, booing and spirited shouts. Tsuna weaved through people to scan the building fronts—a scented candle shop, a furnishings shop, a henna shop—nope, none of them were any kind of lodgings.

He turned left, right, right, left, one street twisting into another, the hustle of people thickening along with the rising noise. Whatever was going on nearby, Tsuna seemed to be accidentally  heading straight towards it.

At the next turning, Tsuna soon found himself stuck in a street where one end was blocked by a roaring crowd. They all had their backs to him and were yelling excitedly at whatever was in front of them. Tsuna tried to inch past them but there wasn’t a camel hair of space to let him through.

Tsuna glanced behind him, thinking of the similarly hostel-deprived streets that he had already transversed. He scratched his head. What was he supposed to do now?

“Yohoo! Excuse me mister!”

Tsuna looked up. To the right of the crowd there stood a corner building with a girl on its balcony. She was leaning over and waving her arm energetically. Tsuna looked around, wondering who she was calling to and whether they had noticed yet, when someone grabbed his shoulder in a vice-like grip.

Tsuna flinched and his djinn tensed. It was another girl with a scowl as black as her tight hair bun. She had two peculiar glass rectangles perched on her nose in a wiry frame; they intensified the sharp slant of her narrowed eyes. Here was one way to describe this woman: give her a quill and parchment and she could calculate how to crumble someone’s finances under her heel in less than ten minutes.

Tsuna gulped.

“Hana!” The girl on the balcony beamed at them both. “Bring him up please!”

What? _Him_? Tsuna pointed to himself, flabbergasted, and the girl on the balcony nodded happily.

“ _Bring him up please_ , she says,” Hana sarcastically scoffed. “This trouble-making, idiotic, air-headed girl...Well, hurry up then!”

And then she was hauling Tsuna along before he could utter a single protest. Hana snapped and shoved her way through the crowd and although a few men squared shoulders with her, they quickly recoiled when she snarled right back at them. Hana flung open the doors to the corner building and Tsuna caught a blurred impression of red lanterns, heavy incense and strange groans before he was dragged up a spiral staircase and pushed into the open balcony.

Tsuna rubbed his eyes to adjust to the vivid sunlight, then rubbed them again. The girl who had been waving to him was standing in front of him, radiating a smile that was going to make him go blind. She was covered in a fashionable rose-pink cloak that had a high collar and embroidered borders down its centre parting.

“We haven’t got all day Kyoko,” Hana said as she stalked over to stand next to the girl. It was loud enough outside that she had to raise her voice quite a bit. She crossed her arms and glared at Tsuna. “Get it over with already.”

“Of course.” Kyoko nodded sagely. Tsuna was about to nervously ask what in the heavens was going on when Kyoko dropped her cloak to the floor. Tsuna made a strangled noise and his hands flew up to cover his eyes. “What do you think? Would you sleep with me?”

Tsuna could only choke on thin air. This wasn’t what he meant by looking for somewhere to stay the night! He peered sideways in desperation but what he saw only scalded his cheeks hotter—lithe women and men draped languidly over the balcony rail, dressed similarly to Kyoko and fluttering their eyelashes at people below. Oh. _Oh_. This place was—he was actually inside a—Tsuna stammered some garbled nonsense and squeezed his eyes shut.

“I told you he’d be useless,” Hana’s grumbling voice said. “Honestly, you should have gone for someone who wasn’t barely out of his diapers at least.”

“But he looked like he needed cheering up!”

“For heaven’s sake Kyoko, we’re trying to run a business here not make friends! If you wanted a guy’s opinion so badly why not ask one of the people working here or our cloth supplier or, hell, just anyone who isn’t a random kid off the street?”

“No, Hana,” Kyoko replied with soft firmness. “It won’t do. I’m having a block, I need a fresh opinion from someone who’s not in the business. My designs will go stagnant otherwise.”

“What if you ended up with some pervert?”

“Oh I’m sure that wouldn’t have happened. Besides, he’s kind of sweet, isn’t he?”

“Um,” Tsuna said.

“Oh my, I’m terribly sorry!” Kyoko exclaimed. “We’ve been completely ignoring you, how rude of us.”

Hana snorted. “Stop cowering you virgin, she’s put her cloak back on.”

That made Tsuna blush harder but he tentatively lowered his hands and couldn’t help feel embarrassedly relieved that Hana was right. He took a few steps back and looked from one girl to the other. “I  have no idea what’s going on and you’re very pretty but I’m sorry but I can’t—I mean I _can_ but I’ve never—I mean! I’ll just go now?”

“Look what you’ve done now, you’ve broken him,” Hana complained. She grabbed both of their arms, steered Tsuna and Kyoko to a nearby table away from the balcony edge, and pushed them down to sit. “Listen up and get rid of whatever weird idea that’s going on in your head. We’re only here because this brothel is our _client_ , got it? Kyoko here is one of the best tailors in the citadel and they damn well know it.”

Kyoko’s cheeks pinkened but she carried on smiling. “Hana, don’t be silly. I’m hardly one of the best tailors.” She turned to Tsuna with her hands folded in her lap. “She _is_ right about the client though. Madame Lulu wrote a letter to me that interested me enough to put my other work aside for the time being. She owns this brothel, you see, and it’s the most popular one in Rose District. But now others are starting to attract more customers, brothels that are in the alleys or hidden places where you pay less to do whatever you want to the workers, whether they want to or not.”

Tsuna blanched. “That’s horrible. They let that kind of thing happen here?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hana scoffed. She was leaning against the wall next to Kyoko, diverting her attention between keeping an eye on Kyoko and scribbling away on a parchment with a pencil. “It’s only a matter of time before the citadel guards find their roots and tear them down. Everyone knows that slavery is the one thing King Mukuro will never allow, no matter what form it takes.”

“So until that gets sorted out," Kyoko elaborated, "Madame Lulu needs to keep her profits up. She needs something to bring the attention back to her ladies and men, to show that they’re willing and proud of what they do. And that’s where we come in.”

“To make new clothes for them?” Tsuna asked.

Kyoko nodded. “Exactly.”

Tsuna leaned back and thought reflected on what he had just been told. He felt ashamed for sitting inside this kind of place and hearing these kind of things talked about so openly. Back in his village, he knew what sort of names people who slept freely with others were called and it certainly wasn’t anything kind. But then again, the names Tsuna had been called weren’t kind either. _They’re willing and proud of what they do_ , Kyoko had said. He had never heard it put that way before. Maybe...maybe, just like Tsuna, they wished the world would use kinder words when they were just trying to get by in life.

Tsuna glanced at Kyoko to find her patiently smiling, content to wait while Tsuna sorted out his thoughts. Now that Tsuna knew what her real career was, it seemed obvious now from her henna-dyed orange hair to her uniquely crafted bracelets that looked nothing like the ones in the shops or stalls in the main streets. She didn’t just create art through her clothes; she was a work of art herself.

Here was one way to describe Kyoko Sasagawa: they said that if she sewed a bird it would sing, if she crafted flowers they would give fragrance, if she whispered to her dresses their skirts would dance and twirl without their wearer moving a step. Yet still, her candles burned alight every night as she sketched and snipped and strove for a perfect creation that was forever just out of reach.

“I don’t know much about fashion and stuff,” Tsuna said. “I wish I could help but...someone who could help...what if you asked the people who, um, visit here?”

“Ask them?” Kyoko echoed.

A memory surfaced in Tsuna’s mind of his mother humming a song, of hands kneading the rhythm into dough, of bread that Tsuna had pulled a face at, then reluctantly nibbled, then scarfed down as each recipe proved tastier than the last. “I don’t know, like, get the workers to wear the clothes for a week or two and ask them which ones worked best? Oh but then you’d end up with a lot more work and it’d take too much time, forget what I said…”

Tsuna looked up from his sandals to find Kyoko’s mouth slightly open. She stared back at him before suddenly leaping forward, grabbing his hands between her own. “Of course...of course! The customers, how could I not think of the customers! And having mock clothes and redrafting them and, oh, this is brilliant! Hana?”

Hana slammed her parchment down on the table. She bent over to write quicker, her pencil flying back and forth. “The cost will be higher but of course—we can substitute the normal fabric for a cheaper version for the mock clothes—satin is in good price these days—and the overall profit will overcome the costs—if we’re going to meet the deadline we need to buy the extra fabric as soon as possible—hurry up Kyoko, let’s go!”

Hana rushed out of the door, still scrawling away at her parchment. Kyoko sprang to her feet and Tsuna hastened to do the same. She secured her cloak with a brooch then swooped forward to peck Tsuna’s cheek. “Thank you! Thank you so much! I’ve got to go but if you need anything, anything at all, we’ll be here again tomorrow! Goodbye!”

It was as if Kyoko had a bubble around her which blocked out the rest of the world; as soon as she left, the crowd’s noise from outside reared up and nearly knocked Tsuna off his feet.

Tsuna stood there in a daze, one hand clutching his cheek. Whenever Tsuna thought he could finally leave his mother’s ghost behind, a trace of her memory would echo in the smallest of things and remind him how painfully he missed her.

...What was this feeling? Tsuna frowned and clutched his heart, trying to separate his thoughts from his djinn’s to discern why it was stirring. It had perked up when Kyoko had kissed his cheek and was now undeniably...curious? Tsuna realised his djinn had acted similarly whenever Dino had slung an arm around his shoulders or Reborn had ruffled his hair but he had never been able to put a name to the foreign emotion before.

Oh boy. Tsuna wasn’t going to touch this with a pole the length of ten men.

There was a deafening cheer from the crowd outside. What was going _on_ down there? Tsuna walked over to an empty space in front of the balcony rail and looked down.

His eyes widened.

He was overlooking a large courtyard of cobbled stone and bronzed sunlight. The courtyard was brimming with as many people it could fit and more; they were hollering from the balconies, from the rooftops, even from on top of each other’s shoulders for those who could keep their balance. The only clear space was inside the giant circle in the middle, marked by a white rope nailed into the ground. Within the circle, a shirtless man and teenage boy were gripping each other’s forearms as if they were horns on a bull. A stocky man dressed in a helmet and chest plate was crouching nearby with a lowered flag in each hand. The man and boy were grappling and heaving and each time they made their opponent’s feet skid, the crowd would jump up and punch the air and coins would flash between gambling fingers.

“Hey there, pretty boy,” someone purred. One of the workers had prowled over to lean next to Tsuna, a supple man with smoky eyes and swaying hips. He stroked Tsuna’s cheek with a painted fingernail. “Your lips would look gorgeous in lipstick. Why don’t you let daddy put some on for you?”

Tsuna reared back when the worker tried to press their lips together, silently appalled at the way his djinn had _wilted_ a little at Tsuna’s denial. Nope, still not going to think about it. “I’m fourteen!”

“So darling? They start young here, you know.”

“I’m broke.”

“Nevermind then.” It was if a lantern had been blown out—the worker slumped lazily against the rail and flipped his finger at his jeering colleagues. He put his chin in his hands and sighed dreamily. “Just look at that Yamamoto. I’d die to get my hands on those abs of his.”

“Um, what?” Tsuna said weakly, cheeks blazing.

“Fucking hell.” The worker whistled. “You're new to the citadel, aren’t you? You see the twink in the ring, the one with the leather armbands? That’s Yamamoto Takeshi, _everyone_ knows who he is. He’s been winning arena fights left right and centre if he isn’t going to enter the tournament tomorrow, I’ll hand myself over to the monks and swear a life of chastity.”

“What tournament?” Tsuna asked but his words were drowned out by a surge of eager screams. Yamamoto had hauled his opponent over his back, despite the fact he was thrice Yamamoto’s own age. He took a few staggering steps and then ran forward. With a great heave, he hurled his competitor through the air to land outside the ring. The armoured man raised a flag, as if the result wasn’t already clear and the crowd wasn’t already going _wild_. Tsuna winced and clapped his hands over his ears.

“Did Yamamoto just win the competition?” Tsuna yelled to make himself heard.

“No! Yamamoto is volunteering for the barracks master, that’s the guy with the armour and flags! Whoever beats Yamamoto gets a free ticket to the tournament, front box, just a few rows behind the Sun Paladin himself!”

“The...Sun Paladin?”

“Pretty fucking awesome, right?” The noise had lessened enough for them not to shout anymore. The barracks master was gesturing passionately but anyone he pointed to backed away hurriedly. It seemed like watching a grown man get flung like a ragdoll was great entertainment as long as you didn’t volunteer yourself next. “As if the Vongola tournament wasn’t popular enough before he took the mantle. Prove your worth in the tournament and you can get handpicked to join his Vongola Knights—”

“Watch out!” Tsuna’s eyes snapped around and his djinn instincts slowed everything down—the female worker still tripping, her silver tray tumbling down, the hot tea arching right towards Tsuna. His heart thudded and he sprang out of the way, one arm flinging up to avoid his sleeve getting drenched.

“I’m so sorry!” the female worker and Tsuna blurted at the same time. The crowd was roaring but he barely noticed, busy squeezing the tea he hadn't been able to avoid out of his white tunic but he knew it was too late, it was already stained, where was he going to find some more clothes now and why was the male worker he had been talking to grabbing Tsuna’s shoulders and turning him around—

Oh.

The rest of the courtyard stared back at Tsuna. The barracks master was pointing right at Tsuna.

Yamamoto cocked his head at him and grinned.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have our next competitor!”


	6. I Watched Your Eyes Bleed Silver

“It was an accident!” Tsuna wailed to no avail. The crowd was chanting for him to _fight, fight, fight_ and the cheering brothel workers flocked around Tsuna like butterflies on a honeyed apple.

Tsuna’s protests fell on deaf ears as they herded him off the balcony, back inside the dimly-lit brothel and down the spiral staircase. Their hands were all over his shoulders, his back, his hips and Tsuna was too busy smothering his djinn’s indignation and trying not to trip down the stairs to stop them. His ruined tunic was pulled off him and, after a roar of laughter at his flushed mortification, he was manhandled into a clean shirt. Someone pinched his cheeks, someone else slapped his backside and Tsuna was smothered in good luck kisses as they forced him towards the brothel entrance.

_—I think with that face of yours, it will be easy to find where you will be living—_

_—Why does thy face look so familiar—_

—Tsuna barely managed to snag a face veil from a nearby clothes hook. He fumbled the strings into a knot behind his hair before he was pushed out of the door. He stumbled into the courtyard; the crowd surged forward to devour him. Whooping and yelling, they squeezed him through their crushing ranks until he was gracelessly dumped before the barracks master.

“There you are, there you are,” the armoured man panted as he jogged forward to meet Tsuna. He pushed at Tsuna’s spine, ignoring the icy stiffness that garnered, and ushered him hurriedly towards the centre of the courtyard. The flags he had used to signal the winner of the previous match were being dabbed against his perspiring forehead. “Listen up, there’s only one rule—get Yamamoto out of the ring and you win. Got it? Hurry up then, in you go.”

And then, before Tsuna could get a single word in, the barracks master patted him heartily on the back. Tsuna staggered a few steps forward, waved his arms, caught his balance. Breathe a sigh of relief only to look down and freeze.

He had crossed the rope that was nailed into the ground in a massive circle—he was inside the ring.

Tsuna slowly raised his head.

In the middle of the ring stood the famed Yamamoto. He was bare-skinned save for his rugged leggings and leather armbands. Drops of sweat glimmered on his chest, highlighting the lean curve of his triceps as he stretched his elbow behind his neck. When Tsuna met his eyes, Yamamoto smiled widely and the crowd exploded with screams of marriage proposals.

Here was one way to describe Yamamoto Takeshi: he wouldn’t think twice about putting his hair or limbs in the path of a blade if it saved someone else, if it gave him the upper hand in a fight, if it made his blood pump faster and made him feel _alive_.

Tsuna shivered.

“Wait,” he said, backing away with both hands raised. The barracks master had retreated to the other end of the ring, crouched with his flags in both hands; he was too far away to hear Tsuna. Yamamoto looked friendly enough to hear him out though, right? “This is a mistake! I don’t want to fight, I swear.”

“You put your hand up, didn’t you?” Yamamoto cheerfully replied, still stretching. “And you came inside the ring to face me.”

Tsuna tentatively circled the edge of said ring. If he could get close enough to the barracks master to explain this whole misunderstanding...wait, why was the barracks master edging away from Tsuna? What was with that thumbs up—was he trying to give them space to fight? That wasn’t helpful at all!

Stealing glances behind him was also a futile quest. There were no gaps in the crowd he could squeeze into and, unlike in the Silk Road earlier, he couldn’t concentrate on enhancing his djinn senses to help him escape.

“I didn’t have a choice!” Tsuna protested. “I was just watching for a bit and then someone spilled some tea on me, but it’s okay it wasn’t on purpose, but then my arm went up by accident and all these people pushed me here and I don’t want to be here at all! You get it, right? I can leave now, right?”

For a blissful moment, Tsuna honestly thought that Yamamoto believed him and that he’d be allowed to bolt out of there, free at last to go hide in a secluded tea shop and drown his unfortunate life choices in a cup of cinnamon spiced brew.

That delusion shattered into pieces when Yamamoto threw his head back and laughed. “That’s a good one! You know, I love bantering before a fight but let’s get started already, yeah?”

“I’m not joking—!”

But Yamamoto had already hunched his shoulders and was charging head on towards Tsuna.

Tsuna shrieked. His djinn, already riled up from the day’s events, flared up its hackles. A foreign image flitted through Tsuna’s mind; the curl of their lips, the scent of hot blood, the crush of their enemy’s skull as they dashed their head into the cobblestones.

Tsuna stomped down his secondhand bloodthirst—distracted, he felt Yamamoto’s outstretched hand ghost his shoulder just before Tsuna threw himself out of the way. Tsuna vividly remembered the way Yamamoto had grappled with his previous opponent. He couldn’t let Yamamoto grab onto him, not if he wanted to keep hold of his last threads of restraint over his djinn.

Yamamoto didn’t miss a beat. He skidded to a halt with practised finesse and, without pausing to take a breath, ran at Tsuna again. Tsuna froze. He desperately tried to remember how to move his own two legs over the thumping of his galloping pulse. In his frenzied fear, Tsuna’s ankles tangled into each other and he smacked face-first into the dusty cobblestones.

The crowd jeered at him. Tsuna’s ears flushed hot. Okay. Alright. So Tsuna may have, possibly, been totally useless at fighting without his djinn in control. It wasn’t his fault! So what if Tsuna grew up doing stuff like helping his mother with the chores and patching their worn clothes? He didn’t like getting into silly fights like the other village children and getting punched in the face, okay? He didn’t even volunteer for this fight right now!

But now wasn’t the time to nurse his bruises—he didn’t even have time to catch his breath. Tsuna rolled away from Yamamoto’s next lunge while coughing out the dirt from his mouth. He scrambled to his feet and tried to his best not to trip again.

The next few minutes were a whirlwind of desperate evasion, of skirting and scrabbling like a trapped mouse. Every attack that Tsuna avoided was a heartbeat too close for comfort, every missed grasp at his shoulders or ankles delivered with enough power to flutter the ends of Tsuna’s hair. There was no leniency in the way Yamamoto fought; he was relentless, a human bloodhound who had caught Tsuna’s scent and wouldn’t pause until he had sunk his jaws into victory. Tsuna didn’t know what was more terrifying—the hidden savagery that gleamed in Yamamoto’s fevered eyes, or the fact that he hadn’t stopped grinning since the fight had started.

Tsuna never thought the day would come where he was frantically  thanking the heavens for his childhood bullying. If it weren’t for his unwilling yet extensive experience at dodging his bullies’ assaults, he wouldn’t have lasted longer than five seconds against Yamamoto. But he was miraculously holding his own and hey, even if his sides were screaming with stitches, maybe Tsuna wasn’t so doomed after all—

Of course, _that_ was when Yamamoto decided to throw the first punch. Tsuna yelped and dropped to a crouch, narrowly escaping the fist that would have suckered his eye black and blue. Wasn’t this supposed to be a wrestling match? Was that even allowed?! Tsuna tried to remember what the barracks master said about the rules—oh right, there _were_ no rules on how you decided to fight. Clearly Yamamoto had decided that if he couldn’t grab onto Tsuna to wrestle him, then some good old, hand-to-hand, flat out pummelling would have to do instead.

The audience roared in approval, with their shouts flying from _poke them eyes out, come on, I’m betting fifty rupees on it!_ to _just kick him in the bloody nuts already!_. Yamamoto swept his leg at Tsuna’s feet and Tsuna nearly tripped when hopping over it. Yamamoto jabbed his elbow into Tsuna’s ribs; Tsuna half-fell out of the way. Yamamoto swung his fist at his cheek; Tsuna ducked and felt a rush of wind pass above him.

There were boos and ridicules and accusations of cowardliness from the crowd. Tsuna didn't have enough concentration to spare to worry about their audience but he could tell that Yamamoto didn’t share their derogative opinion. Every honed attack proved that Tsuna was under the unwanted, deadly force of Yamamoto’s full attention—he was taking Tsuna as seriously as a war declaration.  

And Tsuna, sweating unnaturally cold from the effort of holding his djinn back, was a battle-fatigued soldier about to collapse any minute. When Tsuna threw his next punch, Tsuna dodged the impact—only to falter.

To Tsuna’s horror, Yamamoto’s grin stretched.

“Gotcha,” Yamamoto sang. They were his first words since the fight had started. The hem of Tsuna’s sleeve, already too long on him since his shirt wasn’t his own, was bunched up where Yamamoto had caught hold of it. Tsuna tugged at it in panicked betrayal—it wasn’t budging—his teeth were morphing into fangs behind his face veil—Yamamoto’s other hand was lifting to strike a finishing blow—

In a flash, Tsuna twisted out of the way. He grabbed his own shirt with both hands, grasped onto the neckline and upper arm fabric, and _pulled_. The stitches of the cheaply-sewn shoulder hem flew apart with a satisfying rip. In surprise, Yamamoto faltered in delivering his punch and his grip on Tsuna’s tunic slackened. That single second was all Tsuna needed—he wrenched his arm out of the detached sleeve and left it hanging limply in Yamamoto’s fist.

Then Tsuna turned his back on Yamamoto and ran like hell in the opposite direction. He couldn’t take this anymore! He was out of here!

Feet pounding, veins quivering, Tsuna’s mouth was heavy with blood; he had bitten his own tongue to quell his djinn’s fangs. Even now, as he raced towards the edge of the ring with Yamamoto on his heels and the symphony of the crowd’s anger clanging in his ears, a familiar numbing darkness was creeping up on him.

Tsuna wasn’t in danger—Yamamoto wasn’t a real enemy—please, he didn’t want to hurt anyone, let him hold on just a little longer—!

But as Tsuna prepared to barrel a path through the audience, he was oblivious to one of the Sun Citadel’s unspoken rules; that in a street fight, the displeasure of the audience was a dangerous thing to earn. The crowd drew together and tightened their lines in a barricade. Just as Tsuna was about to cross the rope boundary, the women and men opposite Tsuna thrust their hands at him and sent him careening backwards.

He crashed into Yamamoto’s chest.

His vision when black.

Later, in the quiet of the night when insomnia held dreams at bay, Tsuna would sink back into his headspace where his djinn was waiting with open arms. Drowsy and entwined, Tsuna would let his djinn pulse across its thoughts in abstract, jagged fragments. His djinn would share a scene that began from the moment when Tsuna sagged into his enemy arms, only to straighten up again. Their eyes bled from brown to silver. Their enemy’s chest rose and fell and then stilled. Their arms were drenched in crimson as they tore out every heart that dared beat and drowned those gaping rib cages with roses of ice. At last, when there was no one left breathing who could lay their impure hands on their host, they called on the eastern winds to whisk them away to wherever their host desired.

Then Tsuna’s djinn would share another scene: their host, glaring brokenly in the mirror, as tears scalded his cheeks and he whispered the dreaded words _I hate you_.

And then, as his djinn would let its thoughts fade and retreat with an uncharacteristic reticence, Tsuna would finally begin to understand.

For now, the only thing Tsuna felt was utter confusion. He didn’t know if he had lost consciousness for a second or an hour—one moment he was colliding into Yamamoto, the next he was blinking in a groggy  haze. His awareness came back to him in pieces. There were his feet, planted wide in the ground. There was his right fist, raised high in the air. There was the crowd, staring at him with dropped jaws.

...Oh no. No no no. Why was everyone looking at him like that? Where was the bloodshed? What did Tsuna’s djinn _do_?

The barracks master cleared his throat, a jarringly loud sound in the silent courtyard. Tsuna spun around to face him and all the colour drained from his face. The barracks master was standing up from where he had been hovering over a body. It was a lifeless figure, crumpled against a wall at the other end of the courtyard, a slack lump of limbs with a bloody bruise marred across the left cheek. Those leather armbands—Tsuna was going to throw up— _Yamamoto—_

Yamamoto groaned and scrunched up his face. Tsuna’s shoulders slumped. He dropped his head and fell to his knees. There were tears welling up in his eyes but he didn’t blink them away. For a moment, he actually thought that, that he had...

But then Tsuna found he couldn’t think of anything at all when the barracks master appeared besides him like a phantom, shakily lifting Tsuna’s arm in one hand while raising a flag in the other.

“L-Ladies and gentlemen, we have our winner!”

...Oh, _crap_.

 

* * *

 

Tsuna was resigned to the fact that he had often been and, with his luck, always will be given weird looks by others. There were times when people looked at Tsuna as if he were a walking plague that would infect them if he tried to say hello. There were more recent times when people, namely a certain Cavallone heir, looked at him in a way that he didn’t really understand but was usually followed by a hug or being smothered in extra blankets at night. And then there were times like this, where you would think that Tsuna had started preaching about how tarantulas were absolutely delicious if you roasted and seasoned them just right.

“‘Don’t want my ticket to the tournament’,” the barracks master repeated, shaking his head to himself. “Do you even hear what you’re saying?”

At the end of the fight, the barracks master’s declaration had shaken the crowd out of their shock. The ensuing hollers had been so loud and rambunctious that Tsuna had honestly believed he was going to go deaf. In the end, Tsuna had no clue what his audience’s final opinion of him was—some of them had hoisted him around on their shoulders, others had sobbed indecipherably at him (something to do with bets and being suddenly penniless?), and the rest had dispersed now that their free show had ended. Tsuna had managed to snag the barracks master near a secluded alley and was now struggling to stop the man from leaving.

Tsuna ran a hand through his hair. “I know, just, why can’t someone else have it? I don’t want it!”

“Look, I’ve said it a hundred times now and I’ll say it again: you fight, you win, you’re the one who gets the free ticket. That’s the way I was asked to do it and that’s the way it’s gonna be. Are you crazy, not wanting to go sit in the _front box_ at the _Vongola Tournament_? My young Sami, not my own but my sister’s brother-in-law’s son, good as my own that’s what I’ve always said, young Sami it cost him an arm and a leg and a whole camel load of gold to get a seat in the back of that stadium and he nearly cried from joy. Why, if it weren’t for our Sun Paladin giving a whole bunch of tickets for free to charity—this one in your hand is one of them, make some of them prizes for small contests he said—well without all that it would be a damn hard chance for common folk like you to make it inside—”

As hard as he tried to focus on the rant, Tsuna’s attention had been stolen halfway through. His djinn had been strangely quiet ever since Tsuna had blacked out and, by the way, would _absolutely_ be prodded at as soon as Tsuna had a moment to himself. But now his djinn had started to prickle; a familiar person was approaching Tsuna from behind. Even though Tsuna knew it was coming, the hand that patted his shoulder still made him flinch.

“Hey Ali, I’ll take care of the winner from here. You can go back to your quarters and rest.”

“Oh thank the heavens. You knock some sense into this one, you hear me? I’m late for lunch and starving!”

“See you later!”

And then Tsuna was left alone with the one person in the courtyard he wished he was cowardly enough to avoid. He slowly turned around. It was Yamamoto, his face drowning in an easy-going grin and a huge bandage taped to his cheek. Tsuna winced and  averted his gaze. “Yamamoto, listen, I’m so sorry—”

“What’s your name?”

“T-Tsuna.”

“Tsuna, buddy, you were _amazing_.”

“I—what? Really?”

“Oh man, the way you moved so fast was totally insane. I’ve been fighting for years and I could barely keep up with you, you’ve got to believe me. And that punch at the end!”

“That punch, Yamamoto, I didn’t mean to hit you. I’m really, really sorry!”

“You’re so funny!” Yamamoto laughed. “Of course you had to hit me, that’s what you do in a fight. This one here’s just a scratch anyway. You know Tsuna, I haven’t had that much fun in ages!”

Tsuna found himself returning Yamamoto’s chipper friendliness with a shy smile of his own. It was like he was back with Dino again and wait, there was a frightening thought—Tsuna hoped the two of them never met, for the sake of Tsuna not having his eyes blinded by their combined dazzling jolliness.

“So what are you up to now?” Yamamoto asked.

The ticket that the barracks master had pressed onto him was still in Tsuna’s hand. It was a golden disk that was twice the size of a normal coin. The official Vongola Knights emblem was carved into both sides, with its sword and shield and angel wings. Tsuna sighed and titled his palm so that Yamamoto could see. “Do I really have to go to this tournament?”

“Yep.”

“Can’t you take it?”

“Nope, not allowed. I’m competing anyway so I don’t need it.”

“...I guess I’m going then, whenever or wherever this tournament thing is.”

“Everyone knows that all stuff—you must be new to the citadel, huh. Hey, do you want to grab lunch together? I’ll get up up to speed on anything you want to know, and besides,” Yamamoto added, scratching his chin, “I’ve never met a girl as cool as you before!”

“Lunch sounds good to me...wait, what did you just say?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my readers for being so patient and, as always, your comments and kudos mean the world to me <3


	7. I Broke Bread With You

“Hey Tsuna, come check out the view!”

Tsuna held up a wobbly finger. He had his hands on his knees, wheezing, trying to resist the urge to lie down on the floor right there and never get up again.

He was on the rooftop of a towering building, with a butchery at the bottom and a pile of residential rooms stacked on top. One of its walls was blocking a dead-end alley and several of its bricks had crumbled away with age. Yamamoto had stepped into those footholds with ease, as if he had walked that vertical path countless times. Tsuna, meanwhile...well, the fact that he had introduced his forehead to the ground in his first attempt spoke for itself.

“Are you okay over there?”

“I nearly fell like fifty times,” Tsuna groaned. “I could have become a flat chapati today.”

Yamamoto simply laughed. “Man, you’re really going hard with the jokes today!”

Tsuna sighed and went over to the other end of the rooftop. Unlike Yamamoto, he kept a wary distance from the ledge as he peered over—only to have his breath stolen away again.

There below Tsuna’s feet was a patchwork of canopies. Their rectangular shapes flooded an assortment of tightly packed streets, splashing the scenery in sparkling blues and striped greens and rich reds. Some were tented and some were flat, some were tasseled and some were sequined, some were plain and some were printed with henna flowers and paisley patterns and dancing elephants. Their patterns were even more beautiful up close; Tsuna had walked under those fabric ceilings only five minutes ago.

After their fight in the courtyard, Yamamoto had promised to show Tsuna ‘the best food you’ve ever had, it’s real insane man!'. He had led Tsuna in the opposite direction from Silk Road; as they walked further away, the large tourist shops had dwindled, the streets had narrowed and the architecture had lost its polish. Still, no matter how far they went, there wasn’t a single building front that hadn’t been heaving with stalls nor an empty sidewalk that the merchants hadn’t yet occupied.

At last they had arrived at this canopied marketplace, with its air saturated in the fragrance of fried food and apple liquor. Its tables boasted every kind of food Tsuna could imagine and a thousand more; there were samosas and pakoras and kebabs sizzling in deep oil vats, and naan breads bigger than Tsuna’s torso being baked in fire pits, and lamb slices being stirred into dyed rice, and curries bubbling in cooking pots, and mountains of spices, and strings of garlic and ginger, and little boys and girls running between it all to serve fresh rose syrup juice to people for a small fee. 

Even from up here on the rooftop, Tsuna could catch glimpses of those children from between the gaps in the canopies. He smiled a little and sat down next to Yamamoto, who was busy unfolding a giant date palm leaf and unpacking its massive assortment of food inside. 

“I still can’t believe you got all this for free,” Tsuna said while Yamamoto rubbed his hands together eagerly. Between Yamamoto’s popularity and his friendly charm, not a single merchant had accepted Yamamoto’s offered rupees. “You didn’t need to get my food too, I have my own money…”

“It’s no big deal, buddy. There’s plenty to share,” Yamamoto so easily that Tsuna couldn’t help but relax. “You’ve got to try all my favourites, you’re going to love them!”

And as they dug in to their spoils, Tsuna discovered that Yamamoto was right. He  _ did  _ love the paratha filled with minced beef and peas (it reminded him of his mother’s potato parathas, kneaded and rolled and fried with love) and although Yamamoto’s tastes leaned towards meat so oily it was dripping in grease, they both agreed that chicken shawarma was to die for and if Yamamoto wanted to scoop the rest of his chickpea salad into Tsuna’s serving, well, let’s just say that Tsuna certainly wasn’t complaining. 

Between Tsuna’s previously unnoticed hunger and Yamamoto’s void of a stomach, their banquet was soon diminished into scattered scraps that neither of them were in a hurry to claim. The late afternoon sun was blurring shadows across the marketplace, tired from shining hot but reluctant to sink into sunset. With the shade of the slightly taller buildings behind them and the multicolored view in front of them, Yamamoto couldn’t have chosen a better rooftop to relax on. 

As their conversation idled into a lull, Tsuna noticed the crumbs on his shirt and frowned. He brushed them off and, picking up his discarded face veil in his lap, shook that out too for good measure. When he looked back at Yamamoto, he was watching Tsuna closely.

“Do I still have food on me?” Tsuna asked worriedly.

“You’re good,” Yamamoto said and then, just as casually, “So how come you wear a girl’s veil when you said you’re a guy? Is it because you like it?”

...Well, at least he was straightforward. Maybe it was that mellow, innocent curiosity that made Tsuna answer more truthfully than he would have otherwise. “It’s...complicated. I don’t want to make a fuss because I look really similar to someone a lot of people know and...well...I actually came to the Sun Citadel to meet them. But now that I’m actually here I keep putting it off, like a coward…”

“Hey,” Yamamoto said, patting Tsuna’s shoulder. “Don’t sweat it. You meet this dude or girl whenever you feel ready. It’s your own pace, you know?”

“Yeah, my own pace. Thanks Yamamoto.” Was it really that simple though? Yamamoto, with his legs dangling off the rooftop and a languid slouch melting his spine, obviously led a simple and easy life. He didn’t seem to understand how stressed Tsuna was feeling but then again, it wasn’t like Tsuna had explained everything properly. At least he was trying to be nice and Tsuna appreciated that. “Anyway, you were going to tell me about this tournament right?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot! Okay, so every year the Vongola Knights—”

“—The what now?”

“You know, Vongola Knights, from the Jasmine District, anyway they—”

“—Wait, Jasmine District? What’s a district?”

That was enough to make Yamamoto struggle for thought. “A district is...it’s like, uh...you know how the citadel is laid out and all that other stuff, right?”

“Yamamoto,” Tsuna said, already feeling sorry for both of them. “All I know about the Sun Citadel’s layout  is that it’s a citadel, with the sun on top.”

“Hey no problem, I’ll tell you everything you need to know! You won’t be confused anymore, trust me!”

That was a lie. What Yamamoto proceeded to embark on was one of the most laid-back, disorganised,  _ confusing _ explanations that Tsuna had ever been given. 

Yamamoto kept bringing up names of things while forgetting Tsuna didn’t know what they meant, or unloading dumps of information at once, or getting distracted by side thoughts until Tsuna realised they had somehow started debating whether goat’s milk tasted better fresh and warm or stale but cool, and had to manhandle the conversation back to the main topic. 

Somehow, Tsuna managed to piece together the following: a ‘district’ was an area and the Sun Citadel had four of them. Yamamoto had demonstrated this by drawing the citadel as a circle in the dust and cutting it with an X. The districts were named after the gates they held. Tsuna and Yamamoto were currently in the southern Rose District; not only was this the place for merchants to trade and sell goods, it was also where people set up all kinds of services from bodyguard hire to beauty salons. 

At the opposite side in the north, the Jasmine District was dedicated to the Sun Citadel’s military: the Vongola Knights and their Sun Paladin leader. They were so exclusive, so honourable, so  _ legendary _ that when they hosted their annual recruitment tournament, every woman and man in the citadel scrambled over each other in the rare hope of grabbing hold of a ticket. It was seven days of seven fighting types, and Yamamoto was entering the swords and spears category on the seventh day, and he had been waiting for  _ so long _ to be old enough to compete that in these past few weeks, he kept dreaming of swords holding hands and dancing around him until he vanished in a pink puff and reappeared as a sword himself—

“So you’re telling me the tournament starts in two days?” Tsuna interrupted.

“You got it! You’re going to come watch me when I compete, right?”

“Um, I was actually going to...maybe not this...okay fine, I’ll go.”

And maybe it was, no, it  _ definitely _ was a terrible idea to go to what was obviously the Sun Citadel’s most popular event and go sit in his prizewinner’s front box seat when he was trying to avoid attention—but it was hard to worry when Yamamoto beamed at him like that.

“By the way, do you know any hostels or inns nearby? I couldn’t find any and it’s getting kind of late…”

“Those overpriced tourist traps? They’ll be fully packed until the tournament’s over—nah, why not just stay with me instead? I mean,” Yamamoto added as Tsuna opened his mouth to turn him down, “You won’t believe the crazy stories I’ve got on the Vongola Knights and the Sun Paladin!”

 

* * *

 

If there was a person who wasn’t already Yamamoto’s friend or eager to become one, then Tsuna had yet to meet them. Yamamoto only had to wave at the wagon passing by on Attar Street before the owner pulled to the side for him, ignored the curses from the traffic she was blocking and yelled at them to ' hop right in Yamamoto and friend, I’m heading your way!' . The wagon had four wheels that nearly ran Tsuna over when they had halted, and two horses who startled Tsuna when they nickered at him, and a high carriage that Tsuna had to be lifted by Yamamoto to reach. Yamamoto jumped in right after him and with a crack of the reins, they were off. 

The light inside the carriage was muted, as it was covered by an outer canvas held up by semi-circular wooden beams. There was a partition between the driver’s bench and the bales of hay stuffed to the brim in the back. Tsuna tried to climb over them to find a comfortable spot but every bump in the road knocked him off balance and made Yamamoto laugh harder. He puffed his cheeks and flopped down next to Yamamoto, who had given up from the start and was lying askew over several piles of hay. 

It was uncomfortable and itched like hell and Tsuna didn’t mind at all. Yamamoto’s promised stories were putting a smile on Tsuna’s face, with the way his tales chased themselves in tangents as Yamamoto happily got lost in his own storytelling. 

The last licks of sunshine were spilling through the carriage’s back entrance, tinted orange from the setting sun. The day’s heat had retreated at last, and between the rocking of the carriage and the blanket of cooling air, Tsuna curled up and his closed his eyes.

Then Yamamoto was shaking Tsuna’s shoulder and guiding him out of the wagon with a friendly hand. He must have fallen asleep since the world was now shaded in the indigo-blue of night time. Tsuna rubbed his bleary eyes; the wagon had arrived at a low-roofed stable that looked impossible wide, hosting rows upon rows of stalls. Yamamoto started to help unload the hay bales until the owner noticed and shooed him away with a fond goodbye.

“Let’s go, my place isn’t far from here,” Yamamoto said and Tsuna nodded. He followed Yamamoto out of the stables and down several straight roads. Despite the late hour, the paths were well-lit by uniformly spaced torches. There was something about them and the their too bright flames and this whole place in general that was making Tsuna’s skin crawl from the inside. He moved a little closer to Yamamoto, wide awake now, noticing details that his sleepiness had overlooked like how there were soldiers patrolling in full armour and armoury warehouses along the roads and his djinn was silent in a way that was new to Tsuna, as if they were facing a danger bigger than anything they had ever encountered before. 

And then there was that emblem, engraved on every door and stamped on every patrol soldier’s chest-plate and stitched onto every banner billowing in the rising wind. It was, Tsuna realised with dawning horror, the same sword, shield and angel wings that was carved into his golden prizewinner’s disc. 

Tsuna squeezed it tight in his pocket. His stomach was churning in clenching circles. “Yamamoto, just a small question, just a silly thought—where did you say you live again?”

Yamamoto stopped and Tsuna almost smacked into his back. Tsuna slowly looked up, and then up, and then up some more...Was he hallucinating? Was he dead? Or was he, Tsunayoshi Sawada, who had never thought he’d see anything fancier than his village chief’s three-storey house, standing at the doors of an actual honest-to-heaven  _ castle _ ? There were no words to describe it, no thoughts able to form in Tsuna’s throat as he stared at its great stone walls and rectangular towers and the colossal flag bearing the Vongola Knights’ official emblem at the very top. 

“I didn’t,” Yamamoto replied, scratching his cheek. “But here we are! My home, the Vongola Knights Castle.”

“I mean it’s not really my  _ home _ , just somewhere I sleep and eat and all that stuff,” Yamamoto said as he fist bumped the guards on the door and pulled a slack-jawed Tsuna inside.

“I spend loads of time in the other districts training and fighting in tournaments, you can find them all over the place really,” Yamamoto said as he navigated the complex corridors without pausing or batting an eye at the swords and maces displayed on the walls.  

“So it’s no big deal, this is cool with you, right?” Yamamoto said as he halted in front of the only door in a long hallway and knocked twice. Not a big deal?  _ Cool _ with him? Tsuna opened his mouth but whatever he was about to say got stuck in his throat when Yamamoto turned to face him, rubbing his neck nervously. 

Oh. Tsuna braced himself to say it was alright and it wasn’t a big deal, as if he totally wasn’t screaming on the inside like a goat giving birth, but as soon as he opened his mouth the door swung open.

The man inside was slender, with eyes as blue as the translucent outer robe that floated from his shoulders. It shimmered with silver birds and the slight shift of pulling the door fluttered their wings into flight. When he saw Yamamoto he smiled and birdsong trilled somewhere nearby.

“You’re back today,” he said with a pleasant surprise that grew when noticed Tsuna. “And with a—friend?”

“Ah, yeah,” Yamamoto said. “Tsuna, this is Ugetsu. He’s my, uh, guardian.”

Here was one way to describe Ugetsu Asari: it was rumoured that before joining the Vongola Knights, he had been a wandering traveller with a heavenly affinity with animals. Wherever he walked, birds would circle the skies to shade him and wild beasts knelt to offer him rides. He could have been living in riches from any of the countless nobles vying to take him into their household, but he always turned them down with words so kind that they left in a daze.

“It’s truly a pleasure to meet you Tsuna,” Ugetsu said sincerely. “Come in, please make yourself at home.”

Tsuna fumbled his thanks and entered the door after Yamamoto. Inside was a spacious living room with pale azure walls and cream furnishings. Several scented candles washed the room in a soft light, glimmering along the leaves of the various plants in clay pots. In the middle of the room was a low circular table that was covered in a decorative cloth. It had two flat cushions seated at opposite ends. Two plates and steel glasses had been laid out ready on the table, along with a stick of incense that was nearly fully burned. Its lavender smoke drifted towards the latticed windows at the far end of the room, escaping through the wooden holes to the gentle night outside.

Ugetsu laid out a third cushion for Tsuna to sit on, poured him a cup of steaming tea and placed a plate stacked high with biscuits in front of him. “It’s not much but please help yourself. Please excuse me while I ask the kitchen to serve us dinner.”

After Ugetsu left, Tsuna fidgeted with his teacup and then took a sip; it was peppermint, soothing and sweet. He glanced at Yamamoto who was sitting unusually straight, with his legs kneeling under him and his hands folded awkwardly in his lap. 

“Are you okay?” Tsuna asked. 

Yamamoto laughed but it wasn’t as loud as usual. “Yup, I’m fine.”

Then the door opened again and Ugetsu held it open for a small army of servants. They were dressed in white tunics, the cut of the fabric simple but undeniably elegant. Their red sashes were fastened to one shoulder with Vongola emblem pins and knotted at their hips on the opposite side. In silence, they carried inside silver food dishes and arranged them artfully on the table, along with a third plate and glass for Tsuna and fresh flowers in a vase. Ugetsu thanked them and they bowed deeply before leaving as unobtrusively as they had entered. 

Tsuna stared at the full table. “This is...a lot of food?”

“I asked for some extra dishes,” Ugetsu said as he gracefully sat down. “ How could I let a friend of Yamamoto’s go hungry? Next time you come for dinner, let me know your favourite foods and I’ll have them prepared for you.”

“Actually,” Yamamoto coughed. “Would it be okay if Tsuna stayed with us until the end of the tournament? He’s new to the citadel and I’ve got plenty of space in my room.”

“Oh,” Ugetsu said and again, his face shone with the same pleasant surprise as before. “Of course! Our home is your home Tsuna. You’re more than welcome to stay here for as long as you like. Now, let’s eat before the food gets cold.”

Tsuna gladly dived in, eager to move on from the embarrassing topic of his living arrangements—he was glad Yamamoto was the one to bring it up to Ugetsu instead of himself. Although it was his second time eating with Yamamoto, it was a stark difference from their street food lunch. The food was presented in fancy arrangements with coriander garnishes and lemon slices sprinkled on top. There were neat slices of garlic naan accompanied by five different hummus dips, along with several vegetable curries and rice. Yamamoto was careful to scoop a little bit of everything in his plate, as if he was worried that leaving a single dish untouched would offend Ugetsu, but he ate much less than he did at lunch and his face was tellingly blank as he munched on his salad.  

Tsuna, who had witnessed Yamamoto’s unparalleled love for meat first-hand, wanted to reach over and give Yamamoto a hug….Still, that didn’t mean Tsuna couldn’t help himself to another serving of the courgettes. Hey, he was doing Yamamoto a favour by eating the vegetables okay?

Ugetsu was a gracious host and kept the conversation flowing with a natural subtlety, so that Tsuna found himself talking and laughing without him even realising it. Ugetsu asked questions that were unobtrusive and easy to answer, like what Tsuna thought about the citadel so far or how Yamamoto’s volunteering for the barracks master went today. The story of their fight in the courtyard, Tsuna winning the match and the subsequent gender misunderstanding delighted Ugetsu to no end. After commenting how beautifully woven Tsuna’s cloak was, which Yamamoto had bought for him to cover his sleeveless arm, Ugetsu treated them to some stories of his own of his youthful adventures.

Tsuna had noticed that Yamamoto talked to Ugetsu with an uncharacteristically reserved formality, but the way he looked at Ugetsu when he listened was just as bright as the scented candles’ flames. 

After waiting for everyone to finish eating, Ugetsu called for the servants who cleared the table in the blink of an eye. Yamamoto stretched his muscles and hopped to his feet. “Well, I’m off to train. You can crash on my bed Tsuna, get some sleep yeah?”

“You’re training this late at night?” Ugetsu asked.

“Yep, no such thing as too much practice with the tournament nearly here.”

Ugetsu paused. “Okay, don’t forget to get some rest though.”

“I will!” Yamamoto called back as he put on his shoes and jogged out of the door. Ugetsu sighed so lightly Tsuna could barely hear it. 

Feeling a bit awkward, Tsuna tentatively said, “Thank you for the food, it was really delicious. I think I’ll go to bed now…”

“No need. Please excuse me but I was hoping to speak to you alone, without Yamamoto.” 

Tsuna gulped. He watched with an uneasy heart as Ugetsu picked up the teapot and slowly poured himself a cup of mint tea. With a small spoon, he plucked up and stirred in one and a half sugar cubes. Then he picked up the cup with his fingers, closed his eyes and took a long sip before pinning his gaze at Tsuna. 

“So tell me, Tsunayoshi Sawada, what is the younger brother of our Sun Paladin doing so far from home?”


	8. I Offered You My Protection

Tsuna’s stomach flipped inside out.

“You see, I received an interesting missive this afternoon,” Ugetsu continued mildly. He pulled a scroll out of his inner pocket and unrolled it onto the table. The parchment was filled with neat writing, with every letter penned straight enough to put a measuring ruler to shame. “A young Lynx had some concerns about a traveller who has an uncanny resemblance with the Sun Paladin. Perhaps, he said, he could be an infiltrator or even a djinn in disguise.”

Tsuna’s world was spinning out of control, the walls and the furnishings and the twisting incense smoke blurring into a surreal fog of colours. He started trembling.

Ugetsu’s eyes widened. “Oh, oh dear. Please don’t be frightened, I didn’t mean to scare you.  I’ve already told the Lynx to quietly leave this matter to me. I was going to look into it myself but now that I’m certain it’s you, there’s no need. You’re Giotto’s dearest brother after all.”

“How,” Tsuna said and then wet his lips. “How do you know me?”

“Giotto talks about you to myself and G all the time.”

“He does?”

“Every single day.”

“What...what does he say?”

“That he misses his younger brother, and that there’s no one in this world more beloved to him.”

Ugetsu had lit a fresh incense stick halfway through dinner and placed it in the middle of the table. Its mabkhara was silver on the outside but its inner dish was tarnished black beyond repair. A glowing inner-flame crept down the newest incense stick. As it reached the bottom, the last length of the stick quivered and crumbled apart. Tsuna stared at the ashes and said nothing.  

“Tsuna,” Ugetsu said, kindly ignoring his lack of reply and setting his teacup down with a light chink. “Maybe you were planning on seeing him tomorrow morning, but Giotto would be heartbroken if he knew you had spent a night without him knowing you were in the citadel. I know it’s late and you must be tired but I’ll walk you to his quarters—”

“No!” Both of them faltered at Tsuna’s outburst, and at his hand that had instinctively grabbed at Ugetsu’s sleeve. If Tsuna wasn’t so pale right now, he would have reddened from embarrassment. Still, for some reason, he just couldn’t let go. “Please don’t tell him I’m here!”

Ugetsu didn’t brush Tsuna off. He even leaned in slightly. “Why not? Is there something wrong?”

It was a good point. Tsuna had travelled all this way to meet Giotto and he was even in the same _building_ as him, so why couldn’t he bring himself to make the last step of his journey? No wonder Ugetsu was confused—it wouldn’t make sense to anyone, hell, it didn’t even make sense to Tsuna himself. There were too many feelings clashing in his heart and he just...didn’t want to face them, not yet. If he met Giotto right now, he wouldn’t know whether to hug him or punch him in his stupid face, and he was pretty sure there was a citadel full of people who would mind that second option.

“I’m not ready yet,” Tsuna blurted because that was the painfully honest truth. “I—I just need some more time. Can’t you just keep it a secret from Giotto for a little bit longer?”

Ugetsu shook his head. “I’m sorry Tsuna. Yamamoto may have already told you but I’m one of Giotto’s generals, his third-in-command actually. More than that, he’s my best friend. There aren’t any secrets between us, especially when it’s about someone as important to him as you.”

Tsuna wanted to cry. Only Yamamoto would invite the person who defeated him for lunch, offer him a place to stay, and completely neglect to mention that he was living in the _Vongola Castle_ with the one of the _generals_ as his guardian who was also, oh right, _the Sun Paladin’s best friend_. Here Tsuna was trying to avoid Giotto, only to be introduced to one of the very few people in the citadel who immediately knew who he was and was literally honour-bound to drag him straight to Giotto’s doorstep. What kind of cursed luck was this?!

“I…I…” Tsuna’s knees felt weak against the soft fabric of the cushion. He shifted his leg and felt something slide deeper into his pocket—the prizewinner’s disk! “But what about the tournament?”

“The recruitment tournament?”

“I mean...um, won’t Giotto be really busy? With being in charge of the tournament and all that. He’ll get too distracted if I meet him now...I think…”

What was Tsuna saying? Ugetsu was frowning now, probably because he was too polite to point out how lame Tsuna’s excuse was. After all, now that Giotto was so famous and important, he probably had tons of servants who could babysit Tsuna for him. It wasn’t like Tsuna needed much, just a bed to sleep in and maybe leftover meals from the kitchen if no one minded. He could work out the rest of his life from there, somehow.

But before Ugetsu could reply, there was a knock at the door. Someone called from outside, “Ugetsu? Are you in there?”

The air fled from Tsuna’s lungs.

He dropped Ugetsu’s sleeve and automatically dove under the table. Tsuna had less than a few seconds to squeeze himself into the cramped space. He curled up onto his side and hugged his legs to his chest to stop them from poking out. Pulse hammering, he had just tugged the tablecloth down to cover the sides when he heard the door creak open.

“There you are,” the voice said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

Tsuna’s chest tightened.

In the darkness under the table, he couldn’t see the newcomer but he could easily hear him. His voice sounded like bells ringing through your soul, resonant and clear, a voice that could be heard a battlefield away without being raised. It was deeper than Tsuna remembered, a little less lively and a little more solemn. Still, even after all this time, a single word was all it took for Tsuna to recognise who was speaking.

“Ah,” Tsuna heard Ugetsu say. “What can I do for you Giotto?”

Of _course_ it was Giotto. Why would Tsuna’s common sense let him reunite with his older brother in any other way except for current one where Tsuna was secretly hiding from him under a table? Why was his first reaction to cower under here like a guilty criminal?

His legs were getting painfully cramped and he wanted to stand up already, except that would possibly, probably, absolutely make this whole disaster a hundred times worse. Giotto’s first impression of Tsuna after so long would be that he was a nutcase who liked to crawl under tables—Tsuna would be better off jumping from the nearest rooftop to save himself from the mortification.

Oh, his djinn? That djinn that was currently growling in Tsuna’s mind because of his panicked feelings? Tsuna gave it a mental smack on the head. The last thing he needed right now was for Giotto to find out that not only was Tsuna here in the Sun Citadel and avoiding him, but was also possessed by a creature that any sane person would want killed on sight.

Tsuna clamped a hand over his mouth to muffle his erratic breathing and tried his best to imitate a motionless rock.

“Why do you have to assume I came here for something?” Giotto replied. “Maybe I just wanted to talk to my dear friend.”

“How kind of you. So, dear friend, those letters in your hand aren’t for me?”

Giotto laughed sheepishly and there was the rustle of papers being handed over. “These really are piling up. The clerks in the mailing room looked ready to cry.”

“...I’ll send them some sweet tea and cakes tomorrow.”

“But you won’t change your mind?” A pause. “Really, anyone who calls you a pushover hasn’t spent any time with you at all. You know, I’ve been asked to persuade you to start your sword lessons again—don’t look so worried, I won’t order you to. No matter how many of these letters the soldiers in training write, I know Yamamoto is more important to you. You wanted to spend that time in the evenings with him instead, right?”

“Thank you for understanding Giotto. It means a lot to me.” Ugetsu sighed slightly. “I wish Yamamoto would feel more relaxed around me. Even though it’s been six months already…Your younger brother must be the same age as him. Do you ever wonder what you would do if he came to the citadel one day?”

“Tsuna? In the Sun Citadel? I’d send him back immediately!”

Tsuna, the one being shamelessly discussed, felt his heart constrict. Oh. So that’s how it was. Of all the ways he had imagined Giotto reacting to him, he hadn’t thought of this most obvious one. Why would Giotto want to see him, a remnant from his poverty-stricken past, a blemish on his otherwise flawless image as the Sun Paladin? Tsuna had no money or connections to offer him, only himself and the assumption that Giotto wouldn’t mind tolerating his last living family member.

“Ah. I thought you rather liked him, to put it mildly?”

“Of course I do!” Giotto exclaimed with a surprising burst of energy that shattered his dignified Sun Paladin airs. “How could I not love my darling little brother? There’s no way I’d let him stay here, it’s completely dangerous! The night-time attacks on the walls are increasing and you’ve read our intelligence reports—the djinns are chasing a weapon that can destroy the four gates. Not to mention, if people find out Tsuna is my brother he’s completely open to being kidnapped by both djinns and human criminals. Ugetsu, listen carefully—if he ever shows up here, I’ll escort him back to our village myself!”

Tsuna’s mind had screeched to a halt from the moment Giotto had called him his...his darling little brother...Ugetsu, on the other hand, carried on the conversation serenely as if he was completely used to this side of Giotto.  “But what about your Sun Paladin duties, the recruitment tournament?”

“Forget my duties, they’re not as important. I’m sure someone else can oversee the tournament.”

“I’m sure they can,” Ugetsu said diplomatically. “Well, I’m confident your younger brother is in safe hands now, wherever that may be. If Yamamoto ever got to meet him, I’d imagine they would get along quite well actually. Did you need anything else from me?”

“Well, regarding the logistics for the swords and spears category in the recruitment tournament…”

And with the smooth change in topic, Giotto’s voice dropped back to its previous stately timbre as if that passionate rant had never occurred. Their discussion was brief, since Ugetsu was soon ushering Giotto out with the concern of their Sun Paladin having a good night’s rest as his excuse. After the door shut, Tsuna heard approaching footsteps. The tablecloth was lifted and Ugetsu’s face peered down at him.

Whatever Ugetsu saw in Tsuna’s shivering expression, it made him look like he was torn between sympathy and laughter.

“I think,” Ugetsu said as he offered Tsuna a hand to stand up. “It would be best for us all to keep your presence quiet until the tournament is over, wouldn’t you agree?”

 

* * *

 

Tsuna couldn’t sleep. He was tucked into the corner of Yamamoto’s bed, trying to leave as much space as possible for Yamamoto whenever he returned. It was a compromise between Ugetsu being politely horrified at the suggestion of Tsuna sleeping on the floor, and Tsuna being politely horrified by the suggestion of taking the bed at Yamamoto’s expense. Yamamoto’s bedroom was a strange sight of uncrumpled bedsheets, unused candlesticks and a fine layer of dust over everything except the pile of clothes, training gear and dry snacks hidden under a dressing table.

Tsuna was staring at the cream canopy above the bed but his mind was elsewhere. His djinn had just shared its vision of what could have happened in the courtyard fight earlier that day. It was a bouquet of scenes stained in red, from the pumping heart it would have torn from Yamamoto’s chest to the corners of Tsuna’s eyes as he cried out his hatred afterwards.

The room was silent, save for Tsuna’s nearly inaudible breaths and the faint scratching of Ugetsu’s quill as he stayed up late waiting for Yamamoto in the living room. Tsuna lifted his hand from his pillow to absently look at it. It was exhausting to spend every waking second suppressing his djinn, haunted by the knowledge that these fingernails of his could sharpen into claws, slice open someone’s jugular and let them choke on their own spluttering blood without a hint of remorse. How could Tsuna call this demonic creature anything other than a curse, a beast, a mindless thing of violent instincts?

At least, that’s what Tsuna was used to thinking. He had shared his body with his djinn for a while now, and what it was able to convey had grown from base emotions to what was alarmingly close to _thoughts_ . This was the first time it had been able to share such a complex scene, and those emotions...the way his djinn felt like it was set aflame from the inside, just from the thought of Tsuna saying _I hate you_...

Tsuna turned on his side and tried very hard to think about counting sheep.

The next thing Tsuna became aware of was something bright shining in his eyes. He rubbed them and then winced. Why did his fingers hurt…? He took in his cracked fingernails, and the gravel that was embedded under his nails, and the hole in the floor in front of him.

Tsuna leapt to his feet. The bright light was the morning sun, rising behind the windows and washing his surroundings in a coral glare. He was standing in a nondescript corridor that looked exactly the same as all the other corridors Tsuna had seen in the Vongola Castle so far—in other words, Tsuna had absolutely no idea where he was. With his eyes fixed on the hole, Tsuna slowly lifted a hand and pinched his cheek.

He yelped. That hurt! That meant this wasn’t a dream, so what was going on?! Tsuna may have had the memory of an elderly dung beetle but he was pretty certain he had fallen asleep in Yamamoto’s bed last night, so how in the name of every holy angel did he end up here? He unthinkingly started biting his nails only to flinch at the pain. Brought back to his senses, Tsuna realised he had been pacing around the hole in the floor like a caged lion, and it mirrored exactly how his djinn was feeling right now.

Wait...Tsuna crouched on the floor and stuck both his hands into the hole—they fit eerily perfectly. More importantly, his djinn practically squirmed on the inside like a dog straining against its leash. So it must have been his djinn who made Tsuna sleepwalk here and had spent the night digging with Tsuna’s bare hands. Was this...djinn puberty? Instead of their voices cracking and hair growing in weird places and other awkward things, did djinns feel the need to scratch their claws on something instead? Was his djinn not getting enough stimulation or did its claws just need trimming? Wait, in this scenario, did that make Tsuna the owner and his djinn his pet?

Tsuna groaned and put a hand to his forehead—he was getting a headache from thinking so hard! He looked left and right to double check the corridor really was deserted, before gripping a nearby decorative pot that was nearly as tall as himself. With some channelling of his djinn’s strength, who was still itching to dig and seemed reluctant to help, Tsuna dragged the pot over to cover the hole.

There! It was a big strange to have a huge pot in the middle of the corridor but hopefully this part of the castle wasn’t in use. Even if someone moved the pot, it wasn’t like they could even begin to guess the truth—that the Sun Paladin’s younger brother was possessed by a djinn that liked to dig random holes at night.

Tsuna moved his weight from one foot to the other, wishing there was a way to fix the hole because he was feeling kind of bad about the property damage, but in the end he could only pat the vase before walking towards one of the windows.

Peering outside, Tsuna found out that he was on the ground floor of the castle. He didn’t remember climbing any stairs when Yamamoto led him to his living quarters yesterday, so he must be on the right floor. The only problem was that Tsuna couldn’t remember the path Yamamoto had taken at all—he was officially lost.

Tsuna entertained the thought of finding someone to ask for directions, but that might make them pay more attention to himself than he was comfortable with. He had no choice but to wander from corridor to corridor in the dubious hope of finding his way back.

The sun was still rising, an agonisingly early hour that would have seen Tsuna dead to the world in bed if he had any choice, so the only people he encountered were servants in their red sashes scurrying to their morning duties. Each time one of them passed him, Tsuna hunched into himself and attempted to look as insignificant as possible.

It must have worked _too_ well because soon enough, Tsuna was scolded for not wearing his uniform, a tray was dumped into his arms and he was ordered to take it up to the Sun Paladin’s quarters as part of their esteemed leader’s breakfast. As soon as that particularly harried servant was out of sight, Tsuna turned in the opposite direction and slipped outside through a side door. As it turned out, carrying a tray was a powerful weapon—the knights guarding the door actually nodded at him and when they found out Tsuna was looking for Ugetsu, they even pointed him in the right direction.

Tsuna ended up strolling along the outer wall of the Vongola Castle with a spring in his step and a tray full of delectable pastries for him to nibble on. The morning sun was mild, the fresh air was waking Tsuna up and Giotto was being deprived of some enviably delicious delicacies—what more could Tsuna ask for?

The route the guards had described to Tsuna led him to the back of the castle. When Tsuna turned the corner, his jaw slackened. Greenery was a rare delight in their hot and dry climate, but the plants that could be sparsely found across the desert sands was overflowing in abundance here behind the Vongola Castle. There were palm and juniper and acacia trees touching the heavens with their leafy fingertips and casting a cool shade on the bushy plants below. Slabs of stone slotted together into paths, parting the way between the shrubbery and small boulders and the occasional splashes of red or yellow flowers. Every part of the garden was arranged thoughtfully, so that every component complimented each other in balanced harmony.

Tsuna walked along one of the paths with wide eyes, his fingers trailing along the leaves that brushed along his sides. The air was reverberating with strange cooing sounds. When Tsuna finally discovered where they were coming from, it was a wonder that he hadn’t noticed them earlier—doves, in whites and browns and pinks and greens, perched on the high tree branches with their perfect balance. Some were cocking their heads at Tsuna, some were fluttering between water basins raised on pillars and some had tucked their heads into their wings and were lightly dozing.

He was so busy straining his neck up that Tsuna bumped into someone’s chest. He nearly dropped his tray but the other person smoothly caught it for him.

“Sorry!” Tsuna said and then realised he had managed to find Ugetsu. Oh no, did Ugetsu notice that Tsuna had gone missing overnight? In his panic, Tsuna pointed to the tray that was now in Ugetsu's hands and blurted the first thing that came to mind.  “Um, I bought breakfast?”

Then Tsuna turned red as he looked down at the pastries and remembered he had eaten most of them. Ugetsu, bless his saintly soul, smiled at Tsuna and said, “What a kind thought Tsuna. We can enjoy these pastries with the rest of the breakfast I've prepared.”

Ugetsu then led Tsuna through the garden and to the castle wall. To Tsuna's pleasant surprise, a back door in the wall opened up into Ugetsu's living room. “Did you sleep well last night?”

“Um, yeah, thank you,” Tsuna said. He tried to convince himself it wasn’t a lie because he technically _had_ slept well, since he felt well-rested despite his sleepwalking shenanigans. As he sat on his cushion at the table, he was relieved that Ugetsu hadn’t seemed to notice anything last night. He tucked his hands under his thighs to hide his cracked fingernails. “Yamamoto’s not eating breakfast with us?”

“He came home a few hours ago so he’s still sleeping. I’ll send for some more food after he wakes up. Would you like me to pour you some tea?”

There was a hint of something unusual in Ugetsu’s tone of voice there, but Tsuna got distracted by the way Ugetsu started generously piling his plate high with food.

As they ate their breakfast, the sun fully rose and dressed itself in its brilliantly blue garments. The light warmed Tsuna's skin and soon, Yamamoto would be awake and Tsuna would get to spend more time with him. For the first time in a long time, Tsuna found himself looking forward to what the day would bring. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment if you enjoyed this chapter :)


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